Media Essay
Paris - ID Card/Oral History
Eva Rapaport
Eva was the only child born to nonreligious Jewish parents. Her father was a journalist. Eva enjoyed spending time with her cousin Susie, who was two years older. Eva also took special vacations with her mother. Sometimes they went skiing in the Austrian alps, and on other occasions they stayed at her uncle's cabin along the Danube River.
1933-39: When the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, life changed. Eva's father was harassed by the Gestapo for writing articles against the Germans. Her good friends called her bad names because she was Jewish. Eva's parents said they had to escape. Eva and her parents fled by train to Paris. One day there, in her third-grade class, bombs began falling. They raced to the air-raid shelter and put on gas masks. The smell of rubber was overwhelming. Eva felt like she was choking.
1940-44: After the Germans entered Paris in 1940, Eva's family escaped to the unoccupied south. Two years later, when she was 13, Germans occupied the south and they were forced to move on again. During the treacherous trek in the mountains between Switzerland and France, they took refuge in the small French village of St. Martin. The village priest, Father Longeray, let Eva's parents hide in his basement. Eva lived openly in the parish house as a shepherdess. She attended church with the other children and learned the Catholic mass in Latin.
Eva and her parents remained hidden in St. Martin. They were liberated at the end of 1944. In 1948, when Eva was 18, she and her parents immigrated to the United States.
Item ViewRosa Israel Waldhorn
Rosa was one of 14 children born to religious Jewish parents in the village of Yasinya at a time when it was known as Korosmezo and was part of Hungary. During World War I, she married Michael von Hoppen Waldhorn, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who was based near Yasinya. During the 1920s they moved to Paris, where they raised three children.
1933-39: The Waldhorn family's life in Paris was very different from their life in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Rosa's husband made a good living, and he felt that their children had better educational opportunities. Confident that France was strong enough to defend itself from the Germans, the Waldhorns felt safe in Paris.
1940-44: Germany quickly defeated France in 1940 and occupied Paris on June 14. At first, Rosa, who enjoyed the protection of Hungarian citizenship, was safe from the threat of deportation by the Nazis. But after her husband was rounded up in July 1942 and deported along with other Polish-born Jews, Rosa went into hiding in an attic in Paris and her children went into hiding in the countryside.
Rosa was denounced by an informant, and was deported from Paris on September 2, 1943. She was gassed in Auschwitz two days later. Rosa was 56 years old.
Item ViewIsrael Cendorf
Israel was born into a religious Hasidic family who hoped he would become a rabbi. But Israel rebelled and apprenticed himself to a printer when he was 16. He read constantly, deepening his sympathy with the workers' struggle, and he soon began to write his own revolutionary songs. His first book of poems, The Red Agenda, was warmly received.
1933-39: In 1933, the year Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Israel moved to Paris. But the city was wracked by unemployment, and Jewish immigrants were in constant danger of being deported. To support his family, Israel peddled wood from door to door. He continued writing. He joined the Writers' Union and wrote for the New Press.
1940-44: The Germans occupied Paris in June 1940. Israel worked for 11 months with the antifascist underground until he was arrested and deported to Pithiviers, a transit camp of 2,000 Jews. There he helped organize the underground, set up cultural evenings and continued writing. He would go from shack to shack, reading his poems to the other prisoners. One poem, "Our Courage Is Not Broken," was sung as the camp's anthem: "Our courage is not shackled/ Life is marvelously beautiful..." In May 1942 he was put on a transport to Auschwitz.
Israel died in Auschwitz. Many prisoners from Pithiviers sang his song "Our Courage Is Not Broken" on their way to the gas chambers.
Item ViewRosalia Wourgaft Schatz
Rosalia was raised by Jewish parents in the small, predominantly Jewish industrial city of Tulchin in southwestern Ukraine. She married Aaron Schatz, and together they raised four children in the city of Odessa. In 1919, when her family was grown, Rosalia and her daughter Ludmilla immigrated via Romania to France after Aaron was killed during the Russian civil war.
1933-39: Rosalia settled in Bagneux, a suburb of Paris. She spoke only Russian and Yiddish and found Paris to be a different world from the one she had known in Ukraine. Ludmilla, now married, lived nearby with her daughter, Nadine. When France declared war on Germany in September 1939, her daughter and granddaughter left for the Brittany coast, but Rosalia remained in Paris.
1940-42: German troops occupied Paris in June 1940. For six months the Germans took no drastic actions against the citizens and Rosalia felt in no immediate danger. But in September 1940 the Germans began to impose anti-Jewish measures and by June 1942, in preparation for mass deportations, they ordered Jews to wear a yellow star. Rosalia was arrested by French police working with the Germans during mass arrests of foreign Jews in the summer of 1942.
Rosalia was deported to Auschwitz via the Drancy transit camp on September 28, 1942. She was gassed on arrival, at the age of 67.
Item ViewMichael von Hoppen Waldhorn
Michael was born in a village in the southeastern part of Galicia, an Austrian province before it became a part of Poland in 1918. Raised by Jewish parents, Michael served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army until the end of World War I. After the war, Michael and his Hungarian-Jewish wife settled in Paris, where he became known as Michel. They raised three children there.
1933-39: Michael's family was better off in Paris than they had been in eastern Europe. In Paris, Michael was a successful businessman with two dry-goods stores, and his children had better educational opportunities. The family also felt sheltered in Paris from the antisemitism that was raging in Germany.
1940-42: Germany defeated France in 1940. Because Michael was not a French citizen, he was in danger of being immediately deported with other foreign-born Jews. In 1941 he lost his stores and market stall and was arrested and imprisoned in Drancy for six months. In July 1942, one month after Jews were required to wear a Jewish star in public, Michael was grabbed on the street by the French police and sent back to Drancy. Six days later, the Germans loaded Michael and other Polish-born Jews into a cattle train.
Michael was gassed shortly after arriving in Auschwitz on July 24, 1942. He was 53 years old.
Item ViewBoria Lerner
Boria was born to a Jewish family living in the Bessarabian province when it was still a part of the Russian Empire. Following Romania's 1918 annexation of the province, life for Bessarabia's 200,000 Jews worsened. Subject to more widespread antisemitic laws and pogroms than while under Tsarist Russian rule, many Bessarabian Jews emigrated overseas or sought refuge back in Soviet villages.
1933-39: Boria became active in a local revolutionary communist group and was arrested and jailed many times. After moving to Paris in late 1938, he joined the International Brigade to fight alongside the Spanish Republicans in their war against fascism. After their war ended in March 1939, he enlisted in the French army to fight against the Nazis. But, due to an illness, he was unable to serve and was discharged.
1940-44: Shortly after France fell to the Germans in May 1940, Boria was deported to the Rivesaltes detention camp in southern France. He escaped in 1941 and went to Paris. There, he headed a unit of the Jewish resistance. They planted explosives in German-occupied buildings throughout the city. Boria oversaw the assembly of bombs and established a workshop and explosives depot in the Latin Quarter. He was arrested during a police roundup on June 26, 1943. He was tortured, but divulged no information.
Boria was condemned to death on September 20, 1943. He was executed by firing squad on Tuesday, October 1, the Jewish New Year. Boria was 28 years old.
Item ViewLeo Bretholz describes arrival at the Drancy camp
After the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, Leo attempted to flee. He eventually reached Belgium. In 1940 he was deported to the St.-Cyprien camp in France but escaped. In 1942 Leo was smuggled into Switzerland but was arrested and sent back to France, this time to the Rivesaltes and Drancy camps. He and a friend escaped from a train deporting them to Auschwitz in Poland. Leo joined the French underground in 1943. He arrived in the United States in 1947.
Item ViewLeo Bretholz describes conditions in the Drancy camp
After the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, Leo attempted to flee. He eventually reached Belgium. In 1940 he was deported to the St.-Cyprien camp in France but escaped. In 1942 Leo was smuggled into Switzerland but was arrested and sent back to France, this time to the Rivesaltes and Drancy camps. He and a friend escaped from a train deporting them to Auschwitz in Poland. Leo joined the French underground in 1943. He arrived in the United States in 1947.
Item View