Given our false papers, which indicated we were French from the Berry region, we were, of course, assumed to be Catholics. However, a most serious problem arose in that, in the course of our very first day at Catholic religious instruction, the Catechism, we both flunked the "making-the-sign-of-the-cross" test, a most unfortunate lacuna by our OSE briefers who should have instructed us in these Christian niceties.

In fact, neither one of those two cute little Mauricet boys had the slightest inkling as to what was desired.

Our mien must have been totally blank, when made to face our shortcoming. This being the case, we were deemed to be Protestants, who are not rare in this part of France, and not given to adoring idols or making the sign of the cross.

Protestants had been decimated during the Religious Wars in the 17th and 18th centuries, except in these rugged hills of the Massif Central, where a sizable Protestant minority survives to this day.

It is most probable that had Father Riou, the Vernoux "curé," gotten in touch with his colleague in Ste. Lizaigne, our supposed birthplace, the latter would have told him the truth—that it wasn't his fault if those two Jewish kids didn't know how to make the sign of the cross.

The local Catholic church

Father Riou, who later spent time in Dachau for anti-German activity, no doubt kept this delicate piece of information "in petto" (to himself).