1947

These letters span a period during which Henri and Yvette mostly lived apart. In February Henri was in Palestine, organising the Communist party there, and Yvette was in France. In June, Henri moved from Palestine to Poland, for more “political” work. He wrote from a devastated Warsaw to Yvette, who had taken a French government job in Vienna, assisting in the regulation of the continued postwar flow of displaced people. Yvette visited Warsaw in late July and a baby was conceived. Yvette, declaring that the baby must be born in France, returned in September – first to Belmont then to Paris – visiting Henri along the way. The letters for the rest of the year presage a reunion in France. Yvette finds an apartment and enrols Henri in a university course.