Therese

Therese emigrated from Warsaw to Brussels as a young girl. In 1939, she married Simon, and war broke out in 1940. While Therese was pregnant with her son, she, her parents, and her husband fled to the south of France where she gave birth. The family lived in the small town of Revel along with a number of other Jewish refugees. The mayor of the town told the refugees there was not enough food and that they would be transferred to other accommodations in Midi.

The refugees were placed on SNCF Convoys and taken to Midi where accommodations turned out to be a refugee camp in Adge. The refugees were not allowed to leave and barbed wire ran the perimeter of the camp. In what turned out to be a fortunate event, Therese’s young son Jacob took ill with a childhood disease, which required him to be hospitalized. Therese and her husband received “laissez passer” in order to visit their son in the hospital. Therese was able to get the sisters who ran the hospital to give her and her son a pass, and the family was able to escape back to Brussels. She was able to avoid capture throughout the rest of the war by moving several more times. Her parents unfortunately were not as lucky and perished in Auschwitz.