My uncle Charles (Chaskiel) who lived with the family moved to London, changed his name to Charles Gordon later joined the British army. My cousin, Joseph Kirchenstein survived in Brussels, Belgium. He was rounded up by the Nazis in 1943, sent to Maligne for deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau, but survived because he was a tailor and useful.
I came from a very religious family. My father had difficulties finding work in Cologne. Our family was very poor and lived in the inner city. As the Nazis came to power, I remember at the age of 6 running away from other kids who threw rocks at me because he was Jewish. Jews were not allowed to go to the public park. When we did go, several Nazis tried to drown my father.
On October 16, 1938, my father and uncle were rounded up and deported back to Poland, because they were Polish nationals. This was the first ethnic cleansing of Jews in Germany. 16,000 Jews were shipped back to Poland. On the way to the police station to be deported, my father told his 10 year oldest son Joseph, “You are now in charge of the family”.
On Kristallnacht (the night of the Broken Glass), November 9, 1938, I remember coming home from school. I passed by a synagogue in which all of the Torah (Bible) scrolls were being burned in a large bonfire. A Nazi shot the Mogen David (Star of David) off the roof of the building.
During Kristallnacht, the Nazis went door to door to round up Jews. They pounded on the door of our apartment. All five children hid under the bed. After a while, the knocking stopped, and they went away. My mother made plans to have the family leave Germany. By pre-arrangement, a cousin living in Brussels, Belgium arranged to come on the train carrying me, Joseph, Martin, and Fanny on our way to Belgium. The cousin talked the conductor in allowing the children through. My mother and my 18 month old sister, Regina stayed behind in Germany, and several months later were smuggled across as well. A Jewish organization helped us find a children’s settlement. My father, now living in his home village, Frysztag, Poland, was never able to be reunited with the family. In 1941, he was later shot with a group of 5000 Jews that were rounded up in the area.
In 1940, the Germans invaded Belgium. My brothers and I were now living in a Jewish children’s home for boys, joined up with a girls’ home, and were able to get out of Brussels by jumping onto a freight train of boxcars. After three days of traveling without food and water, we ended in southern France, in a village, named Seyre near Toulouse and Marseilles. A year later, when the Nazis started rounding up Jews in France, The director, Alex Frank, found an abandoned castle where 50 boys and 50 girls stayed. It was named Chateaux de La Hille, further south, near the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains. We became known as the Children of La Hille, (pronounced “La EE” in French).
Through Eleanor Roosevelt’s (President Roosevelt’s wife) program of “Save the Children”, some children were able to come to the United States without a visa if they were able secure written permission from their parents. My brother Joseph was able to write to our parents and secure their written permission to come to America. On September 24, 1941, Joseph, me, and Martin arrived in New York.
My mother and two sisters stayed in Belgium. In 1943, the Nazis started rounding up the Jews in Belgium to ship them to Auschwitz for extermination. My mother and two sisters went into hiding (like Anne Frank). My mother was discovered by the Gestapo and shipped to Auschwitz, where on August 3, 1943; she was gassed upon her arrival. My two sisters were then sent into hiding in a convent in Brussels. They both survived the war and were reunited with us brothers in the US in 1948.
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