The last tycoons: the secret history of Lazard Frères & Co (10 page)

Twelve days later, David David-Weill wrote Altschul again, to follow up his previous missive. This one was slightly cryptic and therefore somewhat mysterious. "Supplementing my letter of September 13...I want to tell you that we all rely on you and that I personally rely on you to give our interests in the United States the most complete and friendly attention," he wrote. "If you are willing to do so, we shall ask you to follow very closely anything in your possession which belongs to us, and to make such changes and take such steps as circumstances may require or your judgment and faithful friendship may suggest to you." He added, by way of a postscript: "Andre sends you all his friendly greetings." Two days later, Altschul wrote directly to Andre asking him to write about "all the matters of common interest," because "you can't imagine how remote and isolated we feel from you and all of your cares." He concluded: "There are many matters about which we should speak and on this account it would be highly desirable if you sent Moser or some other homme de confiance on a flying visit to New York."

The outbreak of war across Europe was of particular concern, understandably, to the partners of Lazard Freres et Cie and to all those people associated with the Paris firm. Kristallnacht had definitively proved Hitler's determination to rid Europe of Jews as quickly as possible. Lazard was one of the best-known Jewish banks in Europe. The David-Weills and Andre Meyer were among the most famous bankers in Europe. So it was not long after the German invasion of Poland that many French Jews began to consider an escape. In the face of the Nazi war machine, survival was now the focus of the Lazard partners--for the firm and for themselves--on both sides of the Atlantic. Three days after the German invasion of France had started, Altschul wrote to David David-Weill about his concern for Pierre's safety. "I cannot tell you how much distressed we are by the happenings of the last few days, and I hope that you can still report as you did three weeks ago"--on April 23--"about Pierre's relative security," he wrote. "Our thoughts are constantly with you." After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Andre Meyer sent his wife, Bella, and their two children, Philippe and Francine, out of Paris to Bordeaux, in western France. He remained at Lazard in Paris. He knew, though, it was just a matter of time before he would have to abandon Paris and, together with his family, leave France. "Meyer had no illusions about his situation," Cary Reich wrote. "He was a prominent Jewish banker working for a prominent Jewish bank." He had also been outspoken in his efforts to help German Jews escape Germany. And Andre had contributed money to finance a plot to assassinate Hitler.

By the last week of May 1940, Andre decided the time had come to leave the City of Light. He locked his apartment on the Cours Albert Premier and hired a car and driver to take him to Bordeaux. After a few days there, he packed up his family, and together they headed to the Spanish border. Before leaving Bordeaux, Andre was able to obtain incredibly valuable and hard-to-come-by visas for entry into--and passage through--Spain. At the border, while other refugees from France were standing in interminable lines, often without success--a scene Andre's son, Philippe, remembered vividly as one of complete "havoc"--the Meyer family was whisked past the hoi polloi and into the country. They took a train to Santander, and then, a few days later, moved on to the relative safety of Lisbon, in Portugal, to begin the arduous task of obtaining an even more coveted visa for entry into the United States.

By the end of June 1940, less than a week after Paris fell to the Germans and an armistice was signed, the Lazard business in France, such as it was, had been moved to Lyon from Paris. Altschul's June 27, 1940, letter to Andre included a power of attorney, as Andre had requested, plus a copy of a message taken from "Mr. Harrington--Secretary of State" (perhaps a code name for, or an assistant to, Cordell Hull, the actual secretary of state) about the status of the Meyers' visa applications. Said the message: "It is understood that Andre Meyer is an active member of Lazard Freres & Co. and that his presence is urgently needed in the United States. Prompt consideration of cases should be given."

On July 2, Altschul wrote Andre again. "It is good to know that you, Bella and the children are safely out of France, and I cannot begin to tell you how glad I will be to welcome you all in New York," he said. "This morning I received your message that the State Department communication went through." He told Andre he was looking into getting the family on a flight from Lisbon to New York or, failing that, four seats on the American Export Lines ship. In closing, he wrote that it "must be frightful" for David David-Weill "to have no word about Pierre." By the end of July, Andre and his family were on a Pan Am Clipper, a large seaplane, on a direct flight from Lisbon to New York (with a refueling stop in the Azores)--in retrospect one of the calmer passages out of war-torn Europe to freedom. There remains to this day resentment about the relative ease of Andre's exit. "There are people today, whom I met in Paris," said Felix Rohatyn, "who were related to Andre and who will never forgive him for leaving and leaving them behind, because they went through Spain, which others were not able to do."

Not unlike Felix, the David-Weills were not nearly as fortunate as Andre and his family. As the Germans continued their march across Europe in 1939 and their forward progress seemed unstoppable, at David-Weill's behest Minet began to pack up her boss's art collection. She carefully inventoried and crated the work--some 130 crates in all, with the initials "DW" marked on each--and shipped it to a huge chateau in Sourches along with much of the vast collection from the Louvre. Another twenty-two crates, containing rugs, rare Japanese prints, and some paintings, were sent to another chateau at Mareil-le-Guyon in northern France. Some of his paintings by Corot, Renoir, and Goya were sent to the United States, and the balance, including furniture, sculptures, and some paintings, remained at his house in Neuilly.

At the outbreak of the war in Paris, David David-Weill first went to Evian, in the French Alps, and obtained visas that would have allowed him and his family to immigrate to Switzerland. But he opted not to go to Switzerland and instead decided to try to get to the United States, via Portugal. He left France for Spain during the night of June 19 with a visa granted by the new Petain government, in Vichy, and his passport in order. He then moved on to Portugal. On July 9, while he was away, the Germans looted his home in Neuilly of most of what remained of his priceless collection of art and antiques, although in recognition of their high value they were careful to preserve most of them. They also decided to use the mansion itself as a local headquarters.

David David-Weill returned to France on July 17 at the behest of Pierre, who had informed his father that following the signing of the armistice, there was now a "free zone" in France. Then thirty-nine, Pierre had been an officer in the French army. He had returned to civilian life and to worrying about the future of the firm. A week later, the Vichy government promulgated a decree saying that all Frenchmen who had fled France between May 10 and June 30--the pendency of the war in France--would be summarily stripped of their French citizenship. Michel has since mythicized his grandfather's crucial trip to Portugal. "We are very patriotic in our family and very French," he once said. "He was an old man. And he came back saying, 'I am too old. I want to die in my own country.'"

Meanwhile, the Nazis also descended upon the chateau in Sourches, where much of David-Weill's priceless art collection had been sent. Their information about where the great collections were hidden away was nearly perfect. "When you have the run of the country," the art dealer Guy Wildenstein explained, "and obviously mouths open and I think people are so avid to make money that they sort of are ready to--to betray." On April 11, 1941, the ERR (short for Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg--Hitler's art confiscation apparatus), making sure to target the collections of France's Jews, began to abscond with the David-Weill collection.

On August 14, David David-Weill was staying at the Thermal Hotel in the town of Chatel-Guyon, about thirty miles southwest of Vichy, where all the Parisian banks had been ordered to move. He had then gone into the city of Vichy to see Pierre and his wife, and also to spend the day with another Lazard partner. After the rendezvous with Pierre, and despite the considerable disruption to his country, his firm, and his family, David David-Weill found time to correspond with Altschul about his partner's increasing concern about what Andre's arrival in New York--after even less than one month--would mean to Altschul's stewardship of the New York firm, now that Andre was in a position, physically, to exercise his absolute authority. David-Weill did his best to try to assuage Altschul's belief that Andre would soon replace him. Regarding his visit with the Lazard partner in Vichy, David wrote somewhat cryptically but with a sense of foreboding:

I unfortunately had not the time to go with him over all the details of the important questions that you are actually studying in New York, but I am glad to have this occasion of letting you know my feeling which applies to all the relations which you or myself may have with the firm concerning questions of vital importance for the future of the firm. I sincerely believe that whatever you or I, or both of our fathers, may have done in the past for the benefit of the firm we are still both of us morally and materially indebted towards the firm whose high and undoubted standing contributed largely to our own personal standing and welfare. I am sure that on all such subjects you feel exactly as I do and that you will always do your utmost to help us bring about a continuous and sound development of the New York firm.

On September 8, David David-Weill heard over French radio that he had lost his French citizenship and that all of his property had been confiscated. At the end of October 1940, the Vichy government published the names of twenty-three well-known Frenchmen who had been stripped of their citizenship. The order to do so had been signed by Paul Baudoin, a longtime friend of Andre Meyer's and Vichy's new minister of foreign affairs. Nevertheless, among those people stripped of citizenship by Baudoin were both Andre Meyer and David David-Weill--a very bitter and very public humiliation. Even though he regained it after the war, David-Weill was devastated.

On February 22, 1941, the Finance Ministry in Vichy, following an order from the Germans, placed twenty-nine Jewish banking firms under "Aryan" control, after the confiscation in previous days of small shops and department stores owned by Jews. Actually, the Nazis had started the process of taking control of Lazard eight months earlier, when the firm was moved to Lyon and placed under the control of "provisional managers" because Lazard was within the category of "Jewish or part Jewish undertakings."

By 1941, Lazard Freres et Cie, one of the largest banks in France, had been taken over by the Nazis and effectively shuttered. The partners and the employees dispersed to worry about survival, and even the firm's office building, at 5 Rue Pillet-Will, was sold to a French insurance company. David David-Weill and his wife were in constant fear of being rounded up by the Germans. They fled Lyon and hid for a time in the Roquegauthier castle in Cancon, in southwest France. The castle was the home of a leader of the French Resistance. But by the end of 1942, this location was too dangerous, and they moved again, to Agen, in the Tarn department, and stayed in the home of a friend under the assumed name of Warnier. They survived the war, and David David-Weill got his wish to die in France, which he did at his home in Neuilly in July 1952.

AFTER HELPING TO get Andre out of Lisbon, in October 1941 Altschul turned his attention and his considerable political influence toward getting Pierre David-Weill and his family out of France, where it was obviously still very dangerous to be a Jew, let alone a prominent one from a powerful banking family. Unlike David David-Weill, who was now elderly and had no day-to-day responsibilities at Lazard, Pierre was a crucial part of the business. On Pierre's behalf, Altschul began an assiduous letter-writing campaign to high government officials in Washington. "When you are so busy with questions of first-rate importance, I dislike exceedingly bothering you in Washington with a personal matter," he wrote to Wallace B. Phillips, then director of special information services for the OSS, the precursor of the CIA. "However, in view of our short chat the other day about the case of Pierre David-Weill, I am taking the liberty of writing to you because I have this whole question so much at heart." Altschul was hoping to enlist Phillips's help to reverse the decision a few days earlier that had denied Pierre a visitor's visa into the United States. "It is hard for me to imagine what the reason for the disapproval could have been," he continued. "I have known Pierre all of his life, and have been intimately associated with him, as well as with his distinguished father, David David-Weill. Pierre is a fellow of splendid character, high intelligence, and great courage. The most recent evidence of the last named quality is the fact that he received two citations for bravery in the last war." Altschul informed Phillips that Pierre's presence in New York was needed "merely for business discussions, after which he was planning to return home." In closing, he pleaded: "If without too much trouble you can get at the facts, I should be grateful; and if you find there has been a miscarriage of justice, I should appreciate exceedingly anything you can do to have this situation set right."