It happened one cold night when the sky was filled with clouds and ice coated the streets. There was a commotion on the other side of the river and he slipped out of the house without his parents’ knowledge and quickly made his way to the Marais. There was a curfew, but on this night groups of young men and boys had collected in protest. Among them was a fellow Victor had been chummy with in his younger days, Claude Gotlib. They’d been in the Jewish Scouts together and had spent weekends and holidays in the forest, learning the practical skills needed to survive in such circumstances. Claude motioned to him so they might speak privately as they surveyed the boys and young men who were rallying and demanding their rights. Many had mothers or girlfriends who had followed them and were now weeping, begging for them to come home. Before too long, the Germans would send soldiers to contain the crowd and many who were alive and protesting would be shot down.

“They can riot all they want,” Claude said sadly. “They can’t fight the Third Reich in the streets of Paris. The Germans have the soldiers, the weapons, the tanks, all of it.”

“So we do nothing?”

Claude shook his head. “There’s another way.”

Victor looked at his old friend.

“The Scouts are still functioning. Only now, we’re not playing.” Bands of young Jewish renegades, later to be called La Sixième, lived in the woods and did their best to help others escape and work against the Nazis. These young people were fearless and wild and felt they had nothing to lose. “Have you ever shot a gun?” Claude asked.

As a child, Victor had often been taken into the countryside by his grandfather. He’d been perhaps six or seven, too small to hold a proper rifle, so his grandfather had one made especially for him, the correct weight and size. They’d shot at birds, although it seemed a crime to do so; Victor had cried the first time they’d gathered the doves they shot, piled into a white sheet to carry home. Later, he had been given a full-size rifle, and as it turned out, he had perfect vision and excellent aim. Perhaps it had all been for a reason, his embarrassment at having cried in front of the old man on that first hunting trip, the rain of gray feathers that fell from the sky, the fact that he had learned to be so good at something that repelled him. Now it all made sense, as if his fate had been preordained the moment he walked out into the field with his grandfather and picked up the gun he hadn’t wanted to touch.

“Quite a number of times,” he told his friend.