Hans Ament (M / Austria, 1934-1944), Holocaust victim

Hans Ament (M / Austria, 1934-1944), Holocaust victim

Alfred Ament (M / Austria, 1927), Holocaust survivor

• KEYWORDS : <Austria> <Refugees> <Belgium> <France> <Hidden Children> <Izieu> <Drancy> <Auschwitz>

Biography

Born 1934 in Vienna, Austria. The family moved from Austria to Belgium. After the German invasion, he was among the 44 children hosted in France at the Children's Home in Izieu. They were all deported and murdered at Auschwitz. Hans' brother survived since he was hosted in a different House.

French Children of the Holocaust

Hans AMENT was born on February 15, 1934, in Vienna. He was one of the 44 children from the childrens home in Izieu. His father, Max, was deported on convoy 50 of March 4, 1943. His mother, Ernestina, was hospitalized for tuberculosis on March 23, 1944, in the sanatorium LEspérance (Hope) in Hauteville (Ain), not far from Izieu. She died there on August 7, 1944. Hans, who took the name Jean, was arrested on April 6, 1944, and deported on May 30, 1944, on convoy 75. His older brother had been able to emigrate to the United States. His immigration card shows that Hans had also been accepted by the U.S., but too late.

Yad Vashem

Ten-year-old Hans Ament was one of the children living in the children's home in Izieu. Hans was arrested in the raid, taken to the Drancy concentration camp, and on 30 May 1944, was deported to Auschwitz where he was murdered.

Max Ament, born in Poland, and his wife Ernestina, from Hungary, lived in Vienna with their sons Alfred (b. 1928) and Hans (b. 1934). In 1939 the family moved to Belgium, planning to immigrate to the US. In March 1940, a US visa was issued to Hans in Antwerp, but in May 1940, before Hans was able to leave, the Germans invaded Belgium and the Aments fled to France.

Max was deported from Drancy in March 1943, and murdered at either Sobibor or Majdanek. That same month, Ernestina was admitted to a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, several dozen kilometers from the children's home in Izieu where her little boy, Hans had been brought. Her older son, sixteen-year-old Alfred, was smuggled into Switzerland by the OSE.

In a letter that Hans sent from Izieu to his mother in the sanatorium, the ten-year-old wrote:

"100,000,000 big kisses from your son who is always thinking of you."

Hans was caught together with the other children at the home in Izieu, and deported on 30 May 1944 from Drancy to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. His mother Ernestina died in the sanatorium in August 1944. His brother Alfred immigrated to the US after the war. In 1986, Alfred Ament submitted Pages of Testimony to Yad Vashem in memory of his father, Max and his brother, Hans.