FLORESCO, Mme A
Active on the Riviera in the early 1920s.
Active on the Riviera in the early 1920s.
Raymonde beat Foy at the 1951 French, so her memory in regards to Foy after the war appears somewhat muddled. Clearly she did see her again after the incident. We also don't have the year Foy was hiding with the Vebers-a best guess would be 1942.“One night there was a frantic knocking on our apartment door,” she [Raymonde Veber] remembers. “I opened it to find a woman I knew from tennis, one of my hitting partners, named Jacqueline Foy. She was crying hysterically. Her father had been taken away, she said. She feared she was next — no Jews were safe. I didn’t know her very well, but she was shaking and so afraid, so I let her in.”
Foy was about 26 or 27 at this time, several years older than Raymonde, a talented player who competed internationally. They became unexpected roommates. “She didn’t leave,” Raymonde says. “Jacqueline lived in our apartment for the next six months. She was terrified. She never went outside the entire time, just hid in our apartment. She had no fresh air. I don’t know how she could stand it, but of course she feared what would happen if she left. We fed her and never breathed a word about where she was.”
“Finally, after six months, Jacqueline’s mother sent word that she was safe in the countryside, and that Jacqueline should come and join her. So she slipped out of our apartment. I never saw her again.”
Raymonde hasn’t returned often to France over the years, but on one trip back to her native country she was told that Jacqueline had survived and had returned to Paris after the war. Raymonde headed straight for Jacqueline’s last known address and knocked on the door. Alas, the family member who answered told Raymonde that Jacqueline had recently passed away.
Raymonde asked if Jacqueline’s father had survived.
“He was never seen again,” she was told.
(From the memories of Raymonde Veber in the online article, "Roland Garros at War")