The Search Warrant - Patrick Modiano

Patrick Modiano writes in French and he was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 2014.His father was of Italian Jewish Origin .His mother was a Belgian actress. Patrick Modiano was born in the year 1945, the final years of World War II. Most of his novels have got an autobiographical touch and has a back ground of the torture of Jews during World War II.

The Search Warrant is a Novel portrayed on the background of German Occupation in France during 2^nd World War from 1940 to 1944. In May 1940 German forces invaded France and occupied the Northern and Western Parts of the country. The French Government moved out of Paris saying that a fight in the city will destroy the city completely. Paris was governed by German Military and by French officials approved by Germans. The Jews in Paris were subjected to inhuman treatment and forced to wear the yellow Star of David as a Mark of identification. The Novel depicts the historical great round up on 16-17 July 1942 when 13152 Jews including 4115 children and 5919 Women were rounded up by French Police and sent to Auschwitz , the German Concentration Camp.

The Novel is a labyrinth of Memories, imagination, events of past and present constructed in a historical background. It moves back and forth between memories, facts and imagination, trying to re construct the Jewish life in Paris on the days of occupation.

Dona Bruder, a girl aged 15 years is missing in Paris. A news item on Paris Soir dated 31 December 1941.The author is familiar with the locality of the girl’s residence. He goes in search of the details of missing, imagining what she would have done during the missing period, what would have happened to her? He searches through his memory, through various historical records, through his imagination –through all these searches he uncovers the horrors of Nazi occupation.

Dora Bruder was a Jewish girl. Her Father Earnest Bruder was born in Vienna, Austria. Her mother Cecil Bruder was a Hungarian Jew. At the age of 14 she was enrolled in boarding school of the convent of Holy hearts of Mary run by Nuns. The school register says the date and the reason for her departure as 14 December 1941 and that the Pupil had run away. The author finds her name in the list of Jews deported to Auschwitz in September 1942.What would have been the happenings in her life during the period between December 1941 and September 1942.This is the main theme of the Novel.

The fate of six million Jews in the Nazi rule have been the theme of many works .There were many first person accounts of the life of Jews like "The Diary of Anne Frank" or about the life in the concentration Camp like the autobiographical work of Primo Levy-"If this is a Man". There were several movies depicting the holocaust period. The Life is beautiful -the Italian film by Roberto Benigni and The Schindlers list by Spielberg are some of the recent examples. Patrick Modiano adds to this genre in a very different manner .

Let us see a sample description of a police report made during that period as described in the Novel

“17 may 1944.Yesterday at 02.45 h two police officers from the 18^th arrondissment arrested the French Jew Bar Man, Jules born March 1925……………..who being without yellow star ran away on being questioned by officers having fired three times without hitting him, the officers effected the arrest ….”

Arrest and deportation of Jews to Concentration Camps without any reason, were the normal routine during this period.

In another place he says

“Jews were forbidden to go out after eight ‘O clock night, Compelled to wear yellow star, forbidden to Cross demarcation line into the free zone, forbidden to use the telephone, to possess a bicycle , a radio ……...”.They were persons virtually waiting for their judgment day.

The peculiarity of this Novel is that it follows an unorganized thought process which may not adhere to any strict progress of time lines, but it entangles with the crisscrossing of the boundaries of time and space.