Paul Schwarzbart (M / Austria, Belgium, 1933), Holocaust survivor

Paul Schwarzbart (M / Austria, 1933), Holocaust survivor.

Biography

Paul Schwarzbar was born in Vienna in 1933, the only child of Sarah and Friedrich S. His family had lived in Vienna since the eighteenth century, and his father worked with an import-export company. His mother had been trained as a hat maker, but stayed home with Paul. At age five, the family left Vienna for Cologne, Germany. From there, his father snuck across the border to Belgium. Paul and his mother were caught on their first illegal attempt to join his father in Belgium, but they succeeded the second time.

In May of 1940, Paul’s father was arrested and sent to a labor camp. Paul and his mother remained in Belgium, where she worked for a Belgian family. In 1943 a member of the underground approached Paul’s mother and offered to take Paul to safety. She agreed, and Paul was sent away under the name Exsteen, the name of the family for which his mother worked. Paul spent the rest of the war in Jamoigne, Belgium, in a Catholic home for boys. Though many Jewish boys were hidden there, Paul thought he was the only one.

After liberation, he returned home and found his mother still living there, waiting for Paul and his father to return. His father Friedrich was killed at Buchenwald two months before liberation.