THE PROMISE

Marie de Lattre

(Robert Laffont, 240 pages, 2023)

The Promise is based on Marie de Lattre’s own experiences and the secrets surrounding her family heritage. For more than forty years, the story of her grandparents was kept secret by her father, Jacques.

Marie grew up in a bourgeois Parisian apartment in which Jacques made little hiding places for books and videotapes of the Shoah, photos, and love letters. On her parents’ bedroom dresser, a yellow star gathered dust, and paintings from another era covered the apartment’s walls.

When she was thirteen, her father—a taciturn man who reluctantly spoke of his childhood—invited her to lunch and shared an astonishing secret: Marie’s grandparents, Pierre and Madeleine de Lattre, were actually his adoptive father and mother. His biological parents, Ismak and Frieda Kogan, Jews from Russia and Lithuania, who arrived in France in 1923, were deported in February 1943 and murdered in Auschwitz.

When Jacques dies, Marie inherits an envelope. Inside, she finds love letters with uncertain spelling, and a plea scrawled in pencil: “Don’t forget the child.” What child? Who wrote the note? And to whom was it addressed?

In deciphering these letters, Marie defies her parents’ prohibitions by delving into the family secrets. Her investigation, based on archives from the police, the Memorial of the Shoah, as well as a miraculous phone call from a long-lost witness, unveils an incredible family history.

Ismak was Pierre’s best friend and painting mentor. With Frieda, the three formed strong bonds, so strong that Pierre and Frieda eventually fell in love and became lovers. Ismak, whose relationship with Frieda was strained, met Madeleine, who became his mistress.

Life in Nazi-occupied France became increasingly difficult, especially for Jews. Pierre was able to financially support the Kogans and helped them go into hiding until Ismak and Frieda were arrested and sent to the concentration camp. Pierre and Madeleine relentlessly tried to help, and ended up sealing their four destinies with a secret that would bind them together: taking care of little Jacques and raising him as their child.

By unfolding her father’s story, filled with anecdotes and souvenirs, Marie de Lattre examines the concepts of transmission, filial love, and the path taken to bring to light this deeply moving family history.

Marie de Lattre is an art director. The Promise is her first novel.