05/03/2026
In 1940, in the French seaside town of Le Touquet under German occupation, my dad’s aunt Lisa got a job working behind the counter in a to***co shop.
My dad was 9 years old. He often told me the story of their unlikely—and to me, touching and heartbreaking—friendship with a German Luftwaffe officer pilot named Willi. I put it in my graphic novel memoir REPLAY. Here’s the beginning.
My dad’s stories about Willi moved me especially because it was so surprising to me, as an American kid, that a N**i officer and two Austrian Jewish refugees could be friends. But of course it made sense—that these three young people with similar upbringings and a shared culture, displaced far from their homeland and in danger (in different ways) because of the N**i regime, would find common ground.
The full story is in REPLAY (chapter 4), and its even more unlikely coda in chapter 6. For anyone curious to know more about the historical background and context (and the research I embarked on to check the accuracy of my dad’s childhood recollections), I’ve posted a note in the Replay Annex. You can find all at https://jordanmechner.com/replay (link in bio).
