Tag: Occupied Paris

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The Children Who Survived

Child survivors of Auschwitz (Photo - 1945), Belarussion State Archive of Documentary Film and Photography. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons.
Child survivors of Auschwitz (Photo – 1945), Belarussion State Archive of Documentary Film and Photography. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons.

Born in Poland, Jacob Bresler, 16-years old, survived 5 concentration camps. He lost his entire family to the Holocaust. After spending 2 years at the Landsberg DP (displaced persons) near Munich Germany, Jacob moved to the United States. Mr. and Mrs. Samuels took him into their family and treated him as their son. Jacob went into the US Army, became a television producer, restaurateur, and successful businessman before retiring.

Jacob was fortunate—he was one of very few children who survived.

Shortly after World War II ended, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) produced a series of radio broadcasts with the purpose of attempting to locate relatives of the children who survived the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. If the children found their living relatives, most of the stories did not have happy endings like Jacob’s story. Most of the children were rejected or treated shabbily by their relatives.

I am researching the material for my fourth book, Where Did They Put the Gestapo Headquarters?–A Walking Tour of Nazi-Occupied Paris (1940-1944) .  There are many stories contained within those 4 years of occupation—many of the stories are not very nice. In fact, there are many disturbing stories.

One of the most disturbing is the story of deportation of young French children. The Vél d’hiv raffle or Grand Roundup took place in Paris over 2-days starting 16 July 1942. A total of 12,884 Jews were arrested and moved to Vél d’hiv (a giant bicycle racing covered arena). From there, they were moved to a detention camp known as Drancy located on the outskirts of Paris. This was their last stop before being herded into the cattle cars and taken to Auschwitz. Between 17 and 30 September 1942, 34 convoy trains carrying 33,000 French Jews left Drancy for the extermination camp.

July 1942 was the month the Nazis decided to deport Jewish children regardless of age. The French government known as Vichy agreed. Their reasoning was that they didn’t want the children growing up and figuring out the government’s complicity in having their parents and families murdered. The ages of the deported children ranged from babies to teenagers.

More than 11,000 children from Paris were deported to the extermination camps during the period of occupation. It is estimated that only 300 survived.

Jacob Bresler, 86-years young, continues to this day to search for members of his family.

Read the entire BBC article: Tracing the children of the Holocaust

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Copyright © 2015 Stew Ross

 

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Coco Chanel: Nazi Collaborator or Spy?

Several weeks after the liberation of Paris, Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel was arrested by members of the FFI (French Forces of the Interior—resistance fighters during latter stages of the war) and taken to the Free French Purge Committee headquarters. After two hours of questioning, Chanel was released. She would later tell her maid that she was released under the personal orders of Winston Churchill. Within hours of arriving back at 31, rue Cambon, Chanel left in her Cadillac for Lausanne, Switzerland where she would live in exile until her return to Paris in the mid-1950s (she would come back to Paris from time to time—once as a witness in a trial of her friend and collaborator, Baron Louis de Vaufreland—the judge would declare, “The answers Mademoiselle Chanel gave to the court were deceptive”).

Coco Chanel. Photo (c.1970). Photograph by Marion Pike. Public Domain - copyright expired. Wikimedia Commons.
Coco Chanel. Photo (c.1970). Photograph by Marion Pike. Public Domain – copyright expired. Wikimedia Commons.

Backstory

Chanel had been put on the French Resistance black list since 1942 as a German collaborationnistes (specifically as a horizontal collaborator—get the euphemism?). She was well known as being anti-Communist, pro-German, and virulently anti-Semitic (her verbal diatribes at dinner parties are legendary). Chanel was extremely adept at spinning any story to suit her needs or objectives. Her life story included a broken family childhood (i.e., insecurity—she was a very complex individual), prostitution, homosexuality, drug addiction, creativity, business acumen, betrayals, treason, promiscuous activities, a well-known spy mission, cover-ups, bribes, extreme poverty, extreme wealth, dance halls, lovers—men and women, intellectual friends, loyalty to her friends, and a passion for fashion and fragrances that remain legendary. Wow, how many of us have that resume? Read More Coco Chanel: Nazi Collaborator or Spy?