The aroma "Chanel"

“So! Farewell to the handbags ...” - my friend wrote on Facebook the other day, referring to the review of the book of American writer Hal Vaughn about Coco Chanel "in bed with the enemy" who had died last year in Paris. The review is old. The book for three years was published and translated, including into Russian. The author’s biography, by the way, is completely competing with the biography of his heroine. In the sense that he also clearly knew about intelligence firsthand. One way or another, it was he who was the first to call the Coco’s agent number in Abwehr - F 7124.

Since I was unforgivably missed both the book and reviews, thanks to my friend, for me the whole story turned out to be new. That is, the fact was new: real proof of Chanel cooperation with the Nazis. I don't care about her handbags, but I’m sitting and looking at the Chanel No. 5 perfume bottle, which I have been using for many years. I assure you, women are infrequently true to one brand of spirits (I also use Coco spirits, invention of the mid-1980s, although what is changing). No, no, I know all the vicissitudes around the Chanel spirits, but for me it was still the story of a business thing that lasted the whole war and which Chanel lost to her companion Vertheimer, who was saved from the Nazis in America, on the conditions most favorable to her.

Of course, there are brands burdened with the history of cooperation with the Nazis. But somehow, regardless, to be honest, they were not very interested in their history. I never sought to buy a Volkswagen car, I do not have the clothes of Hugo Boss. I faced the fact that the story is catching up, right in the middle of Parisian street and in the most unexpected situation, when I decided to run into the Lissak optics for contact lenses. And then my French friend, the owner of Israeli citizenship, stopped me with a decisive gesture: "We will buy you lenses in another optics." I looked at her in surprise. "During the occupation, this company posted the poster" Lissak has no Isaac. "I assure you, there are lenses in other stores."

Is it worth it to abandon spirits, clothes, scarves and bags, which have been created and produced by people who have not had any relations with the Nazis for many decades?

I must admit that this slogan, amazing in abomination and vulgarity, made it such an impression that any desire to go to Lissak had a broken one - apparently, forever. Coco Chanel always impressed me with indefatigable energy in life and the simplicity of the lines in design. Well, yes, an affair with a German aristocrat in occupied Paris, accusations of collaborationism, meetings with high -ranking Nazis ... or not quite, because it was formally not convicted. Does something change the fact that she was a fascist spy with a code name Westminster? In the sense, does this reliable knowledge change something for me, which uses the Chanel brand in the 21st century, more than 40 years after the death of Coco? Is it worth it to abandon spirits, clothes, scarves and bags, which have been created and produced by people who have not had any relations with the Nazis for many decades? Will we punish the brand who has retained the tarnished name of the great creator?

A familiar historian who called just at the time when I wrote this column, in response to my many questions, rather a moral and ethical nature, asked a completely academic question: "She was an agent of Abwehr or Gestapo?" And hearing that she worked for Abwehr, he turned on a gloomy grin: "Well, Abwehr is still military intelligence, created even before Hitler's arrival. And not very effective, by the way. In addition, her boss Admiral Canaris, as you remember, was executed by Hitler on charges of treason." Well, yes, and then in 1944 the abover was disbanded and the agents were transferred to the SS not to the most reliable Nazi Schellenberg, who mentioned Chanel in his testimony in the tribunal. Like her, Schellenberg lived (after liberation) for some time in Switzerland.

I’m not sure that all these questions would be interested in me if I had not been the will of fate in France. That war here is present not only with signs reminiscent of the crimes of the Vichyists and the number of Jews sent to the camps. This is not the first country in my life, which was during the Second World War under the Nazi occupation. I lived for several years in Prague. But there, after the Nazis, there were advice that managed to turn from liberators into the invaders. But France became the first country where I understood and felt how close and unforgettable is that I really wanted to forget.

Collaborationism is a local trauma that I worry will be worried about willy and when, for example, I read in my beloved Coctea's diary: "In Hitler we have a poet who is not allowed to understand monotonous people." History does not let go of its heroes and anti -heroes either after 40 years, nor after 100, or after centuries. Actually, it would be nice to remember this about it. Life does not end for some after the date of death. And the most paradoxical and unexpected, when this extended line of life suddenly reaches you and offers in a different century and other time to make a choice, which you did not think about. This is some kind of Time Mashine. A journey into the past with the aroma of Chanel, which I will pronounce or will not bear my personal verdict, which has no more important for anyone except me.

Each country has its own historical injuries, do we not know this in Russia? But we have a fantastic ability to apply one injury to another or look for cure in revenge. Bad method, does not work. In the basement of the Paris Police Museum, a card file is stored in the boxes, where the names of those who collaborated with the Nazis during the occupation of France. These documents have been waiting for 75 years, starting in 1940. There are unknown and well -known names. Next year, the French will begin to upload these documents on the Internet and will do this for four years. The truth about yourself is the best way to overcome the injury and rest, leaving the shadows of their paradise or hell.

Natalia Gevorkyan - journalist

Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the editorial office