Nine Generations

When the war broke out David volunteered for the French army. He had been naturalized in France that same year, but was de-naturalized shortly afterwards as a Jew.On May 2, 1940, Jacob David Garfinkiel and his wife Chaja Pesza Glocer became naturalized French citizens. The Germans entered Paris one month later, on June 14. Later, in application of the law of July 22, 1940, concerning the revision of naturalizations, the decree of September 9, 1943, withdrew French nationality from them and their daughter, who was French by declaration. But the Garfinkiel family was not informed of this because, at the beginning of June 1940, they took refuge in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Corrèze, then in Lyon. On March 8, 1944 (six months after the decree was issued), a police superintendent from the Rhône Prefecture wrote to the Garde des Sceaux that the people concerned could not be notified of the disqualification because they had left their home in Lyon without indicating their refuge. However, he added, "the research continues, Garfinkiel having kept his apartment in Lyon".

To support the family, David tried his hand at textile design, creating patterns for the silk industry in Lyon. He lived more or less in hiding but continued to paint and even participated in exhibitions.

In July 1942, a second child was born, Emmanuel, who was born under difficult conditions and who would suffer mental and physical consequences for the rest of his life. Gisèle, the eldest child, was placed with farmers in the Lyon area for two years.

In 1946, the Garfinkiel family returned to the capital. It had grown with me who had just been born. David found his studio looted. All of his work had disappeared, as well as that which he had left in Poland, as he would later learn.

But above all he discovers that his entire family has perished. This tragedy has never ceased to haunt him and to illustrate itself in his works.^6,7