In My Own Words

“My name is Belle Ostroff.  My maiden name was Lewkowiez (Lewkowicz).  My parents, Jacob & Leah, were from Sosnowiec, Poland.

My brother Isaac, and sister Rachel, were born in Poland.  Jews were treated very badly in Poland, so the family moved to France, where my mother had relatives.  They moved into Le Marais, the poor Jewish quarter in Paris when I was born in 1925.  I was the first child of our family born in France.  Two more brothers, Simon and Max, were born in Paris.  Then we moved to Reims,in search of a better life. My brothers Henri and Emile were born in Reims.

We were happy in Reims, even though we were very poor.  My father worked as a tailor.  My mother took care of the 7 children.  We went to school.  Life was good until the war began.  The Nazis invaded Poland in September, 1939, right around the time of my 14th birthday.

In May, 1940, the Nazis invaded the north of France.  I was about 14, my youngest brother, Emile, was 3 years old.  Reims is located in the northeast part of France, close to the border with Germany.  The entire city was evacuated by the French for fear that the Nazis would bomb Reims because it was so close to Germany.   Everyone from the city, not just the Jews, was loaded into cattle cars and taken to Paris.  The ride seemed to last an eternity, even though Reims is less than 2 hours away from Paris.  So many people were crowded into cattle cars that  there was no place to sit or lay down;  we had to stand the entire time.  There was no food, no water, no windows for air.   I remember I had to use a bathroom, but there was none; so I relieved myself right where I stood. It was a humiliating experience for a teenager that has stayed with me all my life.   When we finally arrived in Paris the French police put us into a military compound.  There were no beds, we slept on straw.  There was no food, only bread and soup.   My aunt was able to get us out of the compound after 8 days. We stayed with her for 2 days;  we couldn’t stay any longer because she didn’t have room for a family of 9.  We decided to go to Perigeux, in the south of France, where my mother had family. We also decided to go to Perigeux because at this time, the south of France was not occupied by Nazis.  It was considered to be free.  A government was established in the south of France; it was known as Vichy.  In reality, they worked closely with the Nazis in the northern part of France.

 I don’t remember how we got to Periguex; I seem to have blocked it from my  memory.  I know we didn’t travel by car, we didn’t own one.  We may have taken trains or buses, rode on wagons or walked.  It must have been an awful time for me to have blocked it out.

Once in Perigueux, family took us in for a few days.  My parents  found a 2 room shed to live in. It was awful; the walls were infested with bugs.  My father found work as a tailor and we got by until Free France was also occupied by the Nazis.  We were all School age children, but forbidden to go to school because we were Jews.

My family had split up. My oldest brother Isaac, and my sister Rachel, were both born in Poland.  We heard that the Nazis were deporting Polish born Jews and we tried to get Isaac and Rachel to go into hiding.  My sister Rachel was sent to live in a remote village called Vineuil to hide from the Nazis.    Isaac refused to hide.  He was about 16 or 17 and he had a girlfriend he was crazy about. He stayed with her. Isaac was very courageous.  The Nazis arrested him 3 times; each time he managed to escape.  One time, they locked him in a movie theater with other people they arrested. Someone set it on fire and he was able to escape.  Another time, he was chained at the feet with other people who were arrested; somehow he managed to escape this also..  After that he joined the

French Resistance.  He got a gun and false papers identifying him as  Jean Lambert, and Jacques Sciandra.

When the Nazis invaded the south of France, we were given an identity card marked in bright red with the word “JEW” in French. I rubbed and rubbed at the word until it smeared, but I could never get it completely off my identity card.  Isaac was able to get me false identity papers, saying I was a non-Jew.  I had a round face, reddish brown hair and green eyes.  Everyone thought that I could pass for a non-Jew, so the papers came to me.

Once the Nazis started rounding up all the Jews, life went from bad to worse.  We lived in constant fear of being arrested and being sent to concentration camps.  I remember the time my father, my brother Simon and I were walking in Periguex; don’t remember where we were going..  We met a Christian shoemaker who told us the town was surrounded by Nazis.  He said he would hide us and made us stay until he came back for us.  He hid us in a garage and told us not to move or talk.  He left and locked the door. This young man was a stranger to us, yet we instinctively thought we could trust him, even though he could easily have been someone who reported Jews to the Nazis. We waited, and waited, in silence. We heard the Nazis approach and knock on the door. We were paralyzed with fear. They must have thought the garage was empty, because they left.  The shoemaker came to get us when it was safe.

Another time, several Nazis with machine guns were patrolling the area where we lived.  One of them barged into the shed where we lived.  We just stood there, scared to death.  The Nazi looked at all of us, then approached my brother Max, who had beautiful curly red hair.  A Nazi patted Max on the head and said “I have one just like that in Germany”.  He told the other Nazis nobody was in the shed and they left.

I  remember another time when I was traveling home from a nearby town where my mother was in the hospital.  I had brought food to my mother and I was going home by bus.  The Nazis stopped the bus to search for Jews.  When they demanded my identity papers, I gave them the fake papers that Isaac obtained for me.  The papers worked; the Nazis left the bus without me.

Rachel and I had a non-Jewish girlfriend in Perigeux. Her name was Lolotte.  Lolotte had a sister who worked for the Nazis turning in Jews for money.  We didn’t know this until it was too late.   Because of Lolotte’s sister, the Nazis knew where to find my father and my brother Isaac.  My father was sent to a work camp in Bordeaux.  My brother had been in Lyon with his girlfriend when he was arrested.  He was sent to Drancy; a camp for French Jews.  From Drancy, people were usually deported to concentration camps.  I remember receiving a post card from Isaac.  In some sort of code, it stated that he was going to try to escape from Drancy.   We never heard from Isaac again.  After the war, we tried everything to find him.  The most recent information came a few years ago.  It is believed that he may have been deported to Buchenwald.  But we still don’t know.

When life became unbearable in Perigeux, we moved to Grand Brassac, a town of about 10 families. We became 1 of only 2 Jewish families hiding there.  We lived in 1 tiny room with no gas, no electric, no water.  We had ration cards for food.  Once a month we went to Perigeux for the coupons.  One time I walked there with my Brother Simon to get the coupons.  We were going  home by bus.  The Nazis got on the bus and made us all get off.  Simon was a little boy and they let him back on the bus.  I showed my false identification papers again and they let me back on the bus and we were able to get home.

Even though we got food coupons, it never gave us enough food.  We were always hungry and ate whatever we could find.  I remember eating rotten apples that we found on the ground.  We ate potatoes with worms in them.  We didn’t care; it was better than starving.  There was no meat, no milk, nothing that growing children need.  Today, my body shows the effects of this bad nutrition.

Rachel had been living all this time hiding in Vineuil.  She returned from Vineuil to get Max, Henri and Emile, the 3 smallest brothers, and take them back to Vineuil to hide.  They had no food for the trip and their money ran out in Limoges.  They went in to a synagogue looking for food and a place to sleep for the night.  The people in the synagogue were unable to help, they had nothing either.  Rachel then went into a church and told them her story.  The people in the church fed them, found a place for them to sleep and gave them enough money to get to Vineuil.  They eventually came home.

When France was finally liberated from the Nazis on June 6, 1944, we were living in Grand Brassac.  My father was released from the work camp and found us in Grand Brassac.  Sadly, he died 6 months later.

Back in Perigeux, the French people there found out about Lolotte’s sister,  the evil woman who turned the Jews in to the Nazis, including my father and brother Isaac.  The got her, shaved her head, painted a red swastika on her head and everyone beat her.  I remember the people shouting at me to beat her for what she did to my father and brother.  I wanted to hit her, but I just couldn’t do it.

 We eventually made our way back to Reims, but we had nowhere to live.  Everything we had before the war was gone.  A nice lady took us in until we found an apartment.

One day in Reims, I met an American soldier who was looking for a jewelry shop to repair his watch.  He approached me and spoke in Yiddish.  He knew I was Jewish because he spotted a mezuzah I wore around my neck.  Three months later, we were married by the army Rabbi.  We had no money for a wedding gown.  The army donated a parachute, which was made of silk, and my father made a beautiful wedding gown out of the parachute.  Eventually, we settled in Philadelphia, where we raised 3 daughters. We have 5 beautiful grandchildren.  I became a United States citizen as soon as I possibly could.

Mom as a bridesmaid 1949 or 1950

My brothers Simon and Emile moved their families to the United States too. Henri and his family lived here too, but now lives in Costa Rica. Max also raised his family here, but they have all moved back to France.  Rachel stayed in Reims.  She married a wonderful man, Sammy, who came from Poland by was of about 3 years in various concentration camps, including Auschwitz.  When my father left Poland, he was one of 18 children, 16 of whom remained in Poland.  Anna, one of his sisters, move to the United States before the war.  All 16 of my father’s brothers and sisters perished in the Holocaust.

I may not have had to endure life in a camp, but I suffered too.  The awful memories have stayed with me all my life.  Especially the memory of my brother Isaac.  I always felt responsible for what happened to him, because it was my friend’s sister who turned him in.  I have lived with this guilt all of my life”.

Sadly, my brother Simon, my sister Rachel and her husband Sammy, have since died.

My husband, Ray, died March 20, 2012.  We were married for 66 years.

In 2012 2 of my granddaughters were married. I now have 2 great grandsons.

Mom moved to an apartment after Dad’s death. She was doing pretty good for a while, until she started falling. She moved into the nursing home section of the complex. Dementia has changed her so much.

On a happier note: In September of 2015 we celebrated mom’s 90th birthday.

 

Mom & Dad on their 65th wedding anniversary.

Mom and her brother Emile, 2012.

 Mom in 2012

Sadly, the world has lost another holocaust survivor.  Mom passed away on February 2, 2016.  She was surrounded by her family.  She knew how much she was loved. Somehow, we will be sure that her story doesn’t die with her.