Figure 1.--.

Die Linden von Lautenbach is a German translation of the original French Les Tilleuls de Lautenbach" by Jean Egen, an Alsatian author. It is the story of an Alsatian family in the period 1914-45. The story's hero is Jean, who is 11 years old. It is seen through the eyes of this boy. The author has a great sense of humor shown by the way he describes his experiences and adventures in the little village of Lautenbach. I found that a movie had been made with the same title ("The Linden Trees of Lautenbach") in 1983, directed by Bernard Saint Jacques. The language is mostly French, but German and Alsatian dialect also are being used in this film. Lucas Beiger plays Jean as a 10 years old. book is fascinating. There is not much about clothing in the book, except on page 162, where the author writes: "We cultivate our prestige with care. Mama orders our clothes from a department store in Paris. That makes us chic in a way you don't see in Lautenbach. For this summer 1928 we got blue suits with white collars and red buttons, something resembling our "Quatorze Juillet" and we are wearing the outfits with pride and when Schangala hears "look! the little Frenchmen!" he feels like a Marshall Foch". Quatorze juillet is July 14th, the same as July 4th in America. The French national colors are red white and blue. "Schangala" means "Little Jean" in Alsatian dialect. Marshall Foch of course was the French military hero of World War I. One might wonder if Jean was an Alsatian boy or a French boy living in Alsace. Jean definitly is an Alsatian boy. Nearly all Alsatians have French first names and German last (family) names. François Schmidt or Henri Jacques Mittelbacher are typical. . It is the same in Luxembourg, but not in the German-speaking part of Belgium or Italy where the children have German first names. I think it has to do not only with the preference for French names by the parents, but also because the French bureaucracy (and perhaps the clergy) insisted to make the children as French as possible.