Difference between revisions of "Category:Chateau de La Hille (subject)"

Chateau de La Hille (see Holocaust Children Studies)

• Hidden Children : Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Overview

• See Die Kinder des Schloss La Hille

As a result of the persecution of Jews during the so-called "Kristallnacht" in November 1938, Belgium accepted several hundred German and Austrian Jewish children. Among them were about a hundred boys and girls who were lodged in two homes in Brussels. When the German army invaded in May 1940, the approximately 100 children aged 5 to 16 years were able to escape at the last minute on a freight train, thanks to the intervention of the director of the girls' home.

After a week traveling through France along with thousands of other refugees from the North, the children arrived in the hamlet of Seyre, near to Nailloux in the department of Haute Garonne, and were lodged in a large barn belonging to the farm of the Chateau de Seyre. There was no furniture or beds and little to eat. The winter of 1940 was very harsh and there was much illness and suffering. Fortunately, the Secours Suisse aux Enfants, a sub-sector of the Red Cross of Switzerland, agreed to provision the young refugees' camp and began to supply clothing and basic needs. The following spring this Swiss organization, directed by Mr. Maurice Dubois, arranged the transfer of the camp to the Chateau de La Hille near Pamiers in Ariège, close to the Spanish border. At the time it was a very neglected building and the older boys set to work digging wells and latrines to make the old chateau habitable. Elka and Alexander Frank followed with the younger children a few months later. Shortly after the move, Roesli Naef assumed the directorship of the home.

During the summer of 1941, seventeen of the younger La Hille children were able to leave for the United States through the efforts of the US Committee for the Care of European Children assisted by the AFSC (American Friends Service Committee, Quakers). Two other teenagers also immigrated to the US that summer thanks to the intervention of relatives in America.

In August 1942, by order of the Nazis all the boys and girls over 15 years of age, about 40 in all, were arrested by the gendarmerie and deported to the camp Le Vernet near to Pamiers. Most of the internees at Le Vernet were transported to the north and to Auschwitz. Only the 40 children from La Hille were saved by the intervention of the Swiss director of La Hille, Mlle. Roesli Naef. Naef immediately contacted Maurice Dubois, who went to see Rene Bousquet, the authorities in Vichy to demand the release of the children. When Dubois threatened to close all the Swiss camps in France, Vichy agreed to free the La Hille youth.

As soon as the children were returned to La Hille, Mlle. Naef immediately began organizing the (illegal) flight of the older girls and boys over the Pyrenees to Spain and the Alps to Switzerland in order to save them. At the same time, other older children found work and shelter with farmers in the region. Twelve or so teenagers joined the Resistance (one of them, Egon Berlin, age 16, was killed in combat in the area). A dozen of the young people were caught during their attempts to flee from La Hille and were killed at Auschwitz. One, Werner Epstein, survived Auschwitz and a death march.

During the final year of the war, a number of French and Spanish refugee children also came to live at the La Hille home.

Yad Vashem later recognized both Maurice Dubois and Roesli Naef as Righteous Among the Nations: Dubois in 1985 and Naef in 1989.

Thanks to the efforts of their Swiss and French protectors, and especially to their "débrouillard" spirit, more than 80 of the 93 girls and boys survived the war and settled all over the world. At least 55 of them are still alive and have reunited several times in Israel, France and the US. The last reunion took place in Toulouse and at the sites of the former camps in Ariège and the Haute Garonne on Sept. 15-19, 2000. At that time, a memorial to the children of la Hille, situated at the entrance to the chateau grounds, was inaugurated.

– Walter Bernstein (one of the children who lived at the chateau, now living in the USA)

The Children

Went as refugees to the United States before the Summer 1942:

1. Rosa Blau (F / Germany, 1931) D
2. Gérard Eckann (1929) D
3. Eisler Bernhard (1928) P
4. Findling Joseph (1928)D
5. Findling Martin (1932) D
6. Findling Siegfried (1930) D
7. Flanter Klara (1929) D
8. Flanter Lore (1934) D
9. Kammer Herbert (1931) A
10. Kantor Arthur (1926) A
11. Kantor Eva (1928) A
12. Krolik Max (1928) P
13. Krolik Rosette (1933) P
14. Obersitsker Gert (1925) D
15. Rinsberg Werner (1924) D
16. Schlimmer Hanni (1926) D
17. Steinhardt Jules (1930) D
18. Steinhardt Kurt (1930) D
19. Steuer Antoinette (1936) P
20. Sostheim Klaus (1926) D
21. Weinmann Rolf (1931) D
22. Wolpert Willy (1930) D

Crossed the Pyrenees to Spain:

1. Inge Berlin (1923), Koblenz (D)
2. Luzian Wolfgang (1925), Wien (A)
3. < Monsieur A. Frank, ehemaliger Leiter der Kolonie >
4. Norbert Stückler (M / Austria, 1925), Wien (A)

Crossed the Alpes to Switzerland:

1. Garfunkei Hans (1924), Königsberg (D)
2. Klein Helga (1925), Mannheim (D)
3. Klonover Ruth (1924), Dortmund (D)
4. Klonover Margot, Dortmund (D)
5. Lewin Leo (1925), Falkenberg (D)
6. Nussbaum Lotte, Rheydt (D)
7. Betty Schütz (F / Germany, Berlin (D)

Kern Margot (1926), Aschersleben (D) Rosenblatt Regina (1927), Langendreer (D) Roth Jacques (1925), Sterkrade (P) Salz Peter (1926), Berlin (D)

Rosenblatt Else (1925), Langendreer (D) Wulf Ilse (1925), Stettin (P)

1. Goldapper Edith (1924), Wien (A)
2. Kammerer Manfred (1925), Berlin (D)
3. Kammerer Walter (1922), Berlin (D)
4. Moser Edith (1924), Hannover (D)
5. Nussbaum Addi (1925), Rheydt (D)
6. Schlesinger Flora, Köchin, Wien (A)
7. Schlesinger Paul (1929), ihr Sohn, Wien (A)
8. Schragenheim Inge (1924), Wien (A)

• Ilse Brunell
• Heinz Storosum (1923-2012)
• Eva Fernanbuk
• Edith Jankielewicz
• Gustav Manasse
• Fred Manasse
• Peter Bergmann
• Alex Frank
• Elka Frank

Survived in hiding in France are

1. Grabkovicz Lixie (1924), Wien (A); Hausangestellte in Grenoble
2. Herz Ruth (1922); Aushilfe, Colonie Suisse, Praz s. Arly
3. Kuhlberg Fanny (1929), Hannover (D); Angestellte bei Bauern, 12 km von Cilly
4. Landsmann Peter (1925), Wien (A)

Leistner Rita (1925), Wien (A) Steinberg Frieda (1924), Wien (A), Heimerzieherin in Mégève Stückler Cilly (1929), Wien (A), Angestellte bei Bauern in Caillac

• Friedl Steinberg
• Ruth Herz (1922)
• Henri Brunell
• Rita Leistner (F / Austria, 1925)
• Lixie Grabkowicz (F / Austria, 1924) -- In Grenoble
• Cilly Stuckler (1929)
• Gerti Lind
• Georges Herz
• Gerard Kwaczkowski
• Frieda Rosenfeld
• Gertude Dessauer
• Fanny Kuhlberg (F / Germany, 1929)
• Rita Kuhlberg
• Henri Vos (1933)
• [[Leo Grossmann
• Willy Grossmann

Joined the underground:

• Ruth Schütz (1925), Berlin (D), in der Résistance

• Egnon Berlin Killed in action in 1943, at 16.

Were rejected at the Swiss border and returned back to the La Hille Castle:

Blumenfeld Karl (1924), Breslau (P) Elkan Bertrand (1922) Klein Kurt (Onze), (1925), Maltersburg (D) Moser Kurt (1922), Hannover (D) Nussbaum Adolf (Addi), (1925), Rheydt (D) Oelbaum Ruedi (1927), Berlin (D) Schragenheim Inge (1924), Köln (D) Strauss Walter (1925), Duisburg (D)

Arrested but not deported:

1. Brünell Heinz (1925), Camp de Gurs, return to the castle
2. Chamberlain Manfred (1925), return to the castle
3. Kammerer Manfred (1925)

Arrested, deported: 12 children (11 died, one survived) + one staff (died)

1. Helft Inge (1926), Wurzen (D); deported -- died
2. Hochberger Adele (1926), Berlin (D); deported -- died
3. Vos Manfred (1924), Köln (D); deported -- died
4. Dortort Emile: Convocation par la companie des travailleurs étrangers. Deportation am 1. März 1943 -- died
5. < Schlesinger Ernst, husband of our cook, deported -- died >
6. Strauss Walter (1925), Camp de Gurs, deported after returning from the Swiss border -- died
7. Blumenfeld Karl, deported (betrayed and captured on the escape to Spain) -- died
8. Eppstein Werner, deported ((betrayed and captured on the escape to Spain -- survived
9. Kurt Moser -- deported -- betrayed and captured on the escape to Spain -- died
10. Fritz Wertheimer -- deported -- betrayed and captured on the escape to Spain -- died
11. Rosa Goldmark (Vienna, Austria) - Died in the spring of 1944 in the psychiatric clinic in Lannemezan:
12. Egon Berlin (Koblenz, Germany) -- died in the 'Maquis' on July 9, 1944:

Bibliography

• Walter W. Reed, The Children of La Hille: Eluding Nazi Capture during World War II (2015).

"Following the horrors of Kristallnacht in November of 1938, frightened parents were forced to find refuge for their children, far from the escalating anti-Jewish violence. To that end, a courageous group of Belgian women organized a desperate and highly dangerous rescue mission to usher nearly 1,000 children out of Germany and Austria. Of these children, ninety-three were placed on a freight train, traveling through the night away from their families and into the relative safety of Vichy France. Ranging in age from five to sixteen years, the children along with their protectors spent a harsh winter in an abandoned barn with little food before eventually finding shelter in the isolated Château de la Hille in southern France. While several of the youngest children were safely routed to the United States, those who remained continued to be hunted by Nazi soldiers until finally smuggled illegally across the Swiss Alps to safe houses. Remarkably, all but eleven of the original ninety-three children survived the war due to the unrelenting efforts of their protectors and their own resilience ... In The Children of La Hille, Reed narrates this stunning firsthand account of the amazing rescue and the countless heroic efforts of those who helped along the way. As one of the La Hille children, Reed recalls with poignant detail traveling from lice-infested, abandoned convents to stately homes in the foothills of the Pyrenees, always scrambling to keep one step ahead of the Nazis. Drawing upon survivor interviews, journals, and letters, Reed affectionately describes rousing afternoon swims in a nearby natural pond and lively renditions of Molière plays performed for an audience of local farmers. He tells of heart-stopping near misses as the Vichy police roundups intensified, forcing children to hide in the woods to escape capture. The Children of La Hille gives readers an intimate glimpse of a harrowing moment in history, paying tribute to ordinary people acting in extraordinary ways."--Publisher description.