by Colette Goldstein
In 1974, Colette Goldstein was asked to speak about her experiences during World War II to her daughter's class of American sixth graders. What follows is the account she gave.
I have been asked to try to explain to all of you what it was like to live in France during the Nazi occupation. It is really a very painful and difficult thing to explain. Perhaps the best way that I can explain it is one word. Fear. Fear of being killed, of having your family and friends killed, fear that one of your neighbors would turn you in to the Germans for being a Jew. But I think the thing we were most afraid of was not of dying, but of being taken to a concentration camp.
Where to begin... I think I will begin at the point that I best remember.
I remember when I was four years old and living at home with my parents and having a very happy life. I knew that there was a war, but it really didn't affect me at all then. I knew that my parents were worried, but that didn't concern me either. I was a child, living with childhood dreams and doing the things all normal children do. All that, however, was soon to change.
I remember my father waking me up one morning before he left for work and taking me to the store to buy me a new toy. That was nothing new since he did that every morning. This day, however, there was a change. As we walked to the store together, holding hands, he told me that I would have to go somewhere else to live as it was no longer safe for me to live with him and my mother. He tried to explain to me the reason why. He told me that the Nazis didn't like Jewish people and that it would be better for me to live with a non-Jewish family and pretend not to be Jewish. Otherwise, if the |
 |
 Colette's parents, Marcelle and Henri Glicenstein, in happier times.
|
I cried a great deal. I loved my parents dearly, as all children do, but I was particularly close to my father and could not bear to leave him. However, I had no other choice. That afternoon I was moved into my new home. It was only a few blocks away from where my parents lived, so I was able to see them everyday. The people I lived with were good and kind to me, and I loved them.
I was with them about six months when I became sick and had to be taken to a doctor. My father took me. I remember walking down the street with him, happy just to be with him and looking up at him. He seemed so tall to me. He tried to reassure me that there was nothing to worry about. Everything was going to be all right. When we arrived at the doctor's office and after I was examined, the doctor called my father in and informed him that all I needed was to have my tonsils out.
It sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, not for a Jewish child it wasn't. You see, there was a command given by the Nazis that no Jew was to be given any medical treatment. I suppose we could have gone to a Jewish doctor. But there wasn't any to be found.
Finally, my father found a doctor who was willing to perform this very "minor" operation. He took me there several days later and waited for me in the waiting room. The horror was just beginning. I was sat down in a chair that looked like a dentist's chair and was told by the doctor to open my mouth. He was going to perform the operation right then and there, without any type of anesthetic or pain killer. I screamed and kicked and really carried on. He and a nurse held me down while another nurse tied me to the chair. The operation then proceeded. The pain was so horrible that I fainted. When I woke up it was all over. My father came and got me and we went back to my home. I was so |
|
 The Glicensteins in Paris before the War. |
Things were peaceful after that for a few months. Then came Passover, the Jewish holiday celebrated around the same time as Easter. Passover is the celebration commemorating Moses leading the Jews out of slavery from Egypt. On that evening my parents decided that things had been quiet and that it might possibly be safe to have the family, including me, over for the traditional Passover Seder.
We were all there together—my aunts, uncles and cousins—and we were having a lovely time when we suddenly heard the marching boots outside. We didn't pay too much attention to it as we were used to it by this time. But on this night the boots suddenly stopped right outside our door. There was a hard knock at the front door, and before anyone could get up to open the door, it was broken in.
There stood two Gestapo agents (German secret police). Suddenly the back door was broken in and two more Gestapo agents stood there. I think we screamed. I'm not quite sure what happened, it was all so fast. I know they came over to the table and asked which one of the men was Henri Glicenstein. My father said he was Henri Glicenstein. They told him that he was to come with them immediately, and they hit him a few times. Then they took him away. They didn't want the rest of us yet.
You may wonder why, when we were all there, they just took him. I don't really know for certain. I do know they were very methodical and systematic. They picked up people from a list they had. There was, however, a new list daily or every other day. My father's name was on the list, ours wasn't. They also knew that they really didn't have to hurry. They would eventually get us all.
For my mother and me, the "eventually" was to have been in 3 days. Fortunately, we were warned by the underground organization that we had been placed on the next list and that we should leave as rapidly as possible. My father had also been warned, but he felt he couldn't run away and leave my mother and me, and there was no way he could run with me. I was just a child and could never survive climbing the Swiss Alps, which was the only possible escape route. He decided to gamble and take his chances and stay with us. He lost that gamble.
Needless to say, after my father was taken we were all in shock. My mother, I believe, went slightly mad and came up with a plan which she hoped would at least enable us to see and talk to my father once more before he was taken to a concentration camp. So, the next day she took me over to Gestapo headquarters hoping they would show a little humanity and let us see my father.
Had she been thinking straight, she never would have done this, as our chances of ever leaving there alive were quite slim. But nevertheless we went. We walked up the front steps and walked in the doors through which very few people ever walked out again. My mother told them who we were and why we were there. I remember that they laughed and laughed. Not a happy laugh, but one of cruelty. I remember that they hit her several times and then hit me once. They told her that she was crazy to have come there, but was lucky because they were going to let us leave. I don't know why. I remember crying and crying and begging them to let us see my father once more.
As it happened, I did see him quite by accident as we were leaving, and to this day wished I hadn't. I wish I could have remembered him as I saw him at our home, not as he looked that day. He was with other prisoners waiting for a car to transport them to a concentration camp. He was all beaten and bloody.
When we left Gestapo headquarters, my mother knew it was time to make plans for us to leave Paris. It wasn't safe, and we only had two days left before they came looking for us. She knew of a place in the country where there was a family there who she felt certain would take me in for a great deal of money. She would find a job, any kind of job. She had a set of false papers and would be able to go just about anywhere.
In order to work and live in those days you needed papers stating your name, occupation and nationality. My mother had a phony set made up saying that she wasn't Jewish. However, even with those papers she was almost caught several times and spent many weeks with my aunt and cousin hiding in the woods.
My mother was a furrier. In fact, so was my father. They owned their own fur company until the war broke out and the Germans issued an order that it was against the law for Jews to own any businesses or property. At that time my father asked one of the men who worked for him if he would run the business until the war was over, when my father could reclaim it.
The man was quite agreeable. My parents stayed there and worked for him. These people, it turned out, became German collaborators. In fact, they were the ones who turned my father in to the Gestapo—not only for being Jewish, but for working against the Germans with the underground, which both my parents did do. (Incidentally, these people still own my parents' fur business in Paris.)
Obviously, my mother could not go there for work, and thus she had to find a place to work to support herself and to pay for my safety. We went to this farm and the people were very happy to let me live with them for a certain sum of money. It was all settled. I was to pretend to be their niece, and above all I had to always remember that, should anyone ever ask, I should say I didn't know where my parents were and I was not Jewish.
I worked very hard for a five year old. I was made to get up at 4:00 a.m. every day and feed the pigs and other animals, milk the cows (which I liked), then get ready for school. After school I had to clean the house and get the kitchen ready for dinner. I was not allowed to eat with the family, because, as they told me, I was not good enough to sit at the same table with them. I would eat standing up at the stove and also helped to serve the others. The only time I was treated well by this family was once every month or two when my mother was able to visit.
| During her visits everything was wonderful. I ate at the table with everyone, and the other children who were also living there would do all the work. These children were not Jewish and lived there because their parents who lived in the city felt that it was healthier in the country. I remember how everyone used to hug and kiss me in front of my mother and tell her they loved me so much. My mother, of course, was happy to see that I was so well treated. She always brought many gifts with her. Some toys and a few cents for me and also gifts for everyone else. As soon as she would leave, they would take my things away from me saying that I didn't deserve them and put them | |
 Colette in a rare playful moment during the War. |
You may wonder why I didn't tell my mother any of this. The reason was quite simple. They told me that if I ever told her they would see to it that the Gestapo would come and put her in a concentration camp with my father.
I remember one day in particular from this time. My mother was visiting me. Suddenly a car appeared and two Gestapo agents got out. They came over to me and were very nice. They offered me a chocolate candy bar. I refused it. They talked and talked to me and kept offering me candy. I kept refusing. I really wanted it, but I was afraid to take anything from them and really hated them.
Finally, they pointed to my mother and asked me who she was. I got scared. My mother turned white for she was very frightened that I would tell them. I was after all just a baby. I looked at my mother and I suddenly knew that I would never say anything to them no matter what they did to me.
I told them I didn't know who she was and that I had never seen her before—as far as I knew she was visiting these people. They asked me where my parents were and if I was Jewish. I told them I didn't know where they were and I was not Jewish. They continued to question me. They hit me a few times. I still kept to the same story. They walked over to my mother and asked to see her papers.
I don't know why they believed us or why they left. It would have been so simple for them to check. But they obviously believed us because they did leave. At that point I became quite hysterical and violently sick. Life went on that way for several years, never any better, but then again really never any worse.
In a way, no matter how badly I was treated or how hard things were, I really had a very easy time of it compared to others. At least I was not in a concentration camp, and above all, I was alive. I remember a case that happened at the beginning of the war—Germany placed 70,000 Jewish children on a ship and said that they would free them in any country in the world that would take them for a great deal of money. The money was raised by Jews from all over and turned over to the Germans. However, there was not one country in this world that would take the children, and they were all returned to Germany and killed. I could have been one of those 70,000 children.
Finally the war was over, and one beautiful day my mother came to take me home. Once there I was reunited with my aunts, uncles and cousins. I was so very happy. But not for long. I was home only a few weeks when the doctors told my mother I had tuberculosis and would have to go to a sanitarium. So off I went again. I stayed there for about 6 months when they discovered that I did not have tuberculosis but was suffering from malnutrition. I then went back home.
After my arrival my mother used to take me with her every day to the train station to look at the survivors as they got off the trains from the concentration camps. We looked and hoped that that day was going to be the one when we would see my father among the survivors. It is difficult to describe to anyone what those poor people looked like. Most of them looked more dead than alive. They hardly looked human.
One day we had a visitor, a man who had survived the concentration camps. He had come looking for us. He had to find us. He really did not want to live and the only thing that was keeping him alive was the hope of finding us. He talked a long time and told us about the concentration camps and the horrible things that happened there. It was like a horror movie.
Finally, he told us about my father. The man explained that, with his underground connections, my father had been instrumental in helping quite a few prisoners escape. Unfortunately, when my father tried to escape, himself, he was caught. However, he was not killed at that time, just beaten.
The man also told us that from, time to time, my father would receive food and clothing packages. He said my father would never keep them but would hand these items out to his fellow prisoners who he felt needed them more than he did. The man said that their horrible existence continued day after day and year after year without change. People were treated like animals, and many soon began to act like animals.
While working one day, my father became sick and had to be taken to the infirmary. This man visited my father after he had been there three days. Prisoners were entitled to only three sick days. After that, if a prisoner was unable to get up and go back to work, he would be killed. Sick prisoners were of no use to the Germans. My father said he was going to try to get up the next morning, but he didn't think he was going to be able to make it. He wasn't. The next day this man saw the German guards leading my father toward the gas chambers. He felt he had to survive just to let us know what kind of person my father was and that, even though he had died, my father left behind so much of himself, not only to us, but to everyone whose lives he had touched. The man left our house and died shortly after. He did not have to live anymore; he had completed his job.
After that my mother decided it was useless for us to continue to look for my father. It was time for us to leave France and go to the United States where we had relatives. Prior to the war, my parents had tried to leave, but on the day before we were to depart, war broke out and we had to remain. My mother tried again. This time we were luckier.
In a matter of a few weeks we were getting ready to journey to the United States. The day before we were to leave, misfortune struck again. Our ship sank. This time, though, my mother was determined that nothing would stand in our way. It would be weeks before another ship was going to sail, and so she made airplane reservations and we left.
What a trip! It took two days. We were lost in a storm twice, lost one of our engines once, and had to make two emergency landings. By the time the trip ended, we had been to Iceland and Greenland and had actually eaten in an igloo—which, by the way, was the most fun part of the trip. But we finally made it. We landed in New York. I can't describe the happiness I felt when I saw the Statue of Liberty. All I could do was cry with joy. When we got off the airplane, I actually kissed the ground. Finally, after all those horrible years of fear and terror, we were safe. |
|
 Colette after the War. |
I, however, was one of the lucky ones. I had a place to go. I had a country that would take me. What of the other survivors? Where were they to go?
Many survivors tried to get into Israel, only to be turned back by the British and sent to the island of Cyprus. But they were determined to go to Israel because, for them, that was the only place left that could truly be considered "home" now. Unfortunately, those who finally managed to get into Israel had to go through a terrible battle. Once again, they had to fight to stay alive.
When the United Nations gave Israel its statehood, there was much joy and celebration. The people danced and sang in the streets. After so many years they finally had a country. Their happiness, however, was short lived for, soon after, the Arabs attacked. But this time the people were going to fight. They were never again going to simply let a group of people quietly march them to their deaths.
And fight they did. Against overwhelming odds, with practically no weapons, they won the war. They felt that they owed it not only to themselves but to the 6 million Jews who had been killed in Europe. Besides, if they had lost, they would have no place to go. The Arabs promised to push them all into the sea. So you see, they really had no choice. They had to win. These are a few of the terrible things that happened during the Second World War. There are many other things that I could relate, but I think I have told you enough to give you some idea of what it was like to be a Jewish child living in Europe during the Nazi occupation. |
|
 Henri Glicenstein (Hirsch Glitzenstein) is one among the many names on this war memorial commemorating those who perished at Auschwitz. |
Colette Goldstein (nee Glicenstein) is a mother and grandmother. She lives in the United States.