My family left Antwerp in May 1940 getting as far as Lyon, France. In 1942, we succeeded into smuggling into Switzerland. The rest of the family from Antwerp hid in Marseilles, France area. One uncle was deported and perished at Auschwitz.
We were living in Antwerp, Belgium until 1940. Our family fled to Lyon, France to get away from the Germans. With the money we had, we lived in a small one room dwelling in Lyon. In 1942, as the things were getting worse, as the Germans were getting close, we decided to flee to Switzerland which was close with the hope that they would let us in. Switzerland did let us in; two of us were under the age of five. Apparently Switzerland had a policy where they would let in parents with children under the age of five. Both my brother Yisroel and I were under five. They were going to send us to a refugee camp however my brother Yisroel contracted typhus.
My father was sent to a refugee camp near Zurich. My brother Yisroel was sent to a hospital in Geneva. My mother, Menachem Mendel and I stayed in Geneva as well to be near my brother. Six months later, my father was released from the camp and joined the family in Geneva. An agency supported by the Polish Government in Exile helped us. We stayed in Geneva until the end of the war. We later heard that 80 percent of Jews trying to get into Switzerland were not allowed in. We were very lucky. They saved our lives.
Several weeks before he passed away, a book that he worked on for a number of years was finally published, HaShevatim, The Tribes, a book about the blessings that Jacob gave his children before his passing.