Daniele Greene remembers the first time she heard Adolf Hitler’s voice on the radio.
She was just a child, living with her parents in Noirmoutier, a tidal island off the Atlantic Coast of France. It was just before the German invasion of France during World War II.
“We had a nice big house and we had a radio and I remember my parents inviting the neighbors to listen to the radio,” Greene said. “Hitler was talking, and I remember that terrible voice. We listened to the speech that Hitler was making and it was scary.”
The speech caused Greene to be filled with dread. The young child could sense her life was going to change soon.
“I remember asking my dad, ‘Papa, is that man going to kill us?’ And my dad always said, ‘Peut etre.’ So this was scary,” she said.
“Peut etre” is a French word meaning “maybe.”
After hearing about Germany’s plans to occupy France, Greene’s father Rene Rougeon, a customs officer, went down to City Hall and donated the fortune of gold coins given to him by his grandfather to help his country. Greene kept two of the coins and put them on a charm bracelet.