I was adopted by a Belgian couple by the name of Gladys and Joseph Marechal.  They belonged to the Huguenot church, French Protestants and were friends of a friend of my mother.  When the Germans invaded, my mother looked to find someone who might adopt me in case it was necessary because we were Jewish.   

 

I was only 13 years old.  My mother told me you’re going to stay with them.  On July 31, 1943, the Germans arrested my mother.  They came for me at the home of the Marechals but I wasn’t there, I had gone to stay with Gladys’ sister and brother-in-law, Winnie and Hubert Budenaer.  

 

The Budenaers then joined the underground and were afraid to keep me.  I went to hide in their church and then also joined the underground myself.    I stayed in the village of Warrem, Belgium.  I transported ammunition that English flyers dropped for the underground to blow up German facilities.  I transported ammunition from one village to another.  

 

When war was over, I went back to the Budenaers and waited for my parents to come back.   One of my uncle Moishe Rozenwald came back and told me that my parents were not coming back, that they had died.  He said he didn’t want me to stay there but to come to his home in Liege, Belgium and so I did.  

 

I was an orphan.  I married another orphan, Simon Rozencweig on November 1, 1947.  The Budenaers who were like my family were moving to the United States to be near their daughter who was living in Detroit.  Their daughter spoke English and helped the downed British flyers find refuge during the War.  She later married an American captain in the US Army.  In 1952, we left Belgium with them and settled in Detroit.  
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