Mina Halaunbrenner (F / France, 1935-1944), Holocaust victim
Mina Halaunbrenner (F / France, 1935-1944), Holocaust victim
Leon Halaunbrenner (M / Austria, 1929-1943), Holocaust victim
Alexander Halaunbrenner (M / France, 1931), Holocaust survivor
Claudine Halaunbrenner (F / France, 1939-1944), Holocaust victim
Monique Halaunbrenner (F / France, 1941), Holocaust survivor
- KEYWORDS : <France> <Hidden Children> <Izieu> <Drancy> <Auschwitz>
Biography
Mina Halaunbrenner was born 1934 in Paris, France. The family had moved from Austria to France. After the German invasion, father was arrested and shot. Leon was deported to hard labor in Auschwitz where he perished. Mother entrusted Mina and Claudine to the Children's Home in Izieu. Both girls were deported and murdered at Auschwitz. Mother and the other two children, Alexander and Monique, survived in hiding.
French Children of the Holocaust
Mina HALAUNBRENNER was born on June 25, 1935; her sister Claudine on April 2, 1939; and her brother Léon on April 21, 1929. They were the children of Jacob Halaunbrenner, born on July 12, 1902, in Drohobycz, Poland; and Ita-Rosa, née Hoffner, born on August 7, 1904, in Fustonowicz, Poland. The Halaunbrenners had five children altogether. Alexandre, their second child, was born on October 28, 1931; Monique, the baby, on December 5, 1941. Léon was born in Drohobycz, while all the others were born in Paris. The oldest, Léon, was arrested by the Lyons Gestapo along with his father at their home at 14 rue Pierre Loti in Villeurbanne, on October 24, 1943. The father was interned at Montluc Fort before being executed by Barbie's Gestapo on November 24, 1943, at the Gestapo building, the military Ecole de Santé. The second son, Alexandre, found his father at the morgue, his body riddled with seventeen submachine gun bullets. Léon was transferred to Drancy and deported to Auschwitz on December 17, 1943, on convoy 63. Impoverished, Madame Halaunbrenner had to give up Mina and Claudine to the OSE, which sent them to the children's home in Izieu. She kept with her little Monique and Alexandre. Mina and Claudine were deported two and a half months after most of the other Izieu children. They left for Auschwitz on convoy 76 of June 30, 1944. Alexandre devotedly keeps alive the memory of the four members of his family murdered by the Nazi anti-Jewish racism. Madame Halaunbrenner played an important part in actions in Bolivia with Beate Klarsfeld in 1972, in the campaign to extradite Klaus Barbie.
Yad Vashem
Two of the little girls caught in Izieu and murdered at Auschwitz were Mina and Claudine Halaunbrenner, daughters of Jacob and Ita-Rosa Halaunbrenner.
Jacob and Ita-Rosa (originally from Poland) Halaunbrenner lived in Austria, where their eldest son Léon was born in 1929. The family immigrated to Paris, where their other four children were born: Alexandre (b. 1931), Mina (b. 1935), Claudine (B. 1939) and Monique (b. 1941).
In 1943, Jacob and his son Léon were arrested by the Lyon Gestapo. fourteen-year-old Léon was deported to Auschwitz where he was forced to work in a salt mine, and perished. Jacob was imprisoned in Lyon and executed. Ita-Rosa, penniless, without work and not knowing a soul, was left to take care of their four remaining children. Heartbroken, but comforted by the fact that they would be safe, warm and well-fed, she entrusted eight-year-old Mina and five-year-old Claudine to members of the OSE who brought the girls to the children's home in Izieu. Alexandre and Monique remained with their mother, and the three of them survived. Mina and Claudine were caught in the raid on the children's home in Izieu, and deported on 30 June 1944 from Drancy to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.
Ita-Rosa Halaunbrenner took part in the struggle to bring Klaus Barbie, head of the Lyon Gestapo, to trial in France, and testified in court.
In 1986, Liora Halaunbrenner, Ita-Rosa's granddaughter, submitted Pages of Testimony to Yad Vashem in memory of Mina and Claudine, their father Jacob and their brother Léon.