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Family
• Denise was born June 21, 1938
• She is the 4th of 6 children
• Her father, Michele, and mother, Perla, came
from Poland in the early 1920’s
Immigration in France
• In the 20th century, France experienced a high rate of immigration
• Opening its doors to immigration was the only way to prevent
population decline due to the country’s low fertility rate and loss
during WW1
• Trentes Glorieurses, France’s strong economic growth, brought the
population of immigrants to account for 6% of the total population
• France was the only country at this time to permit mass
immigration
• The majority of immigrants in the 1920s and 30s came from
Greece, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Russia, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia and Poland
• France was the country of equality, liberty and brotherly love
Le Marais
• Denise and her family lived in Le Marais in the
center of Paris
• Le Marais was in the 3rd and 4th
arrondissements in Paris
• It had one of Paris’ main Jewish community
France and the War
• France joined Great Britain in 1938 to fight against
Germany
• They signed the Munich Pact which helped give Germany
permission to invade parts of Czechoslovakia
• France declared war in September 1939 after Germany
invaded Poland
• Germans occupied France until 1944
• D-Day occurred on June 6. It was a massive Allied force that
landed in Normandy to rid France of the Nazis
• By the end of the war, about 350 000 French soldiers had
been killed and almost a half million French civilians had
died.
Vichy France
• Vichy France was a dark and unfortunate
period in French history
• It refers to the wartime government based in
the city of Vichy in the south of Paris
• It lasted from July 1940 to November 1942
when the Germans finally took over all of
France
Billets Verts
• In 1941, Denise’s father received a billet vert
• Billets were used during World War Two for
different purposes
• Civilians who had been evacuated from a city in
danger of attack were billeted in communal
shelters or in the homes of individuals
• The practice of billeting evacuees was used a lot
in Britain during World War II, especially during
the Blitz
• Billets Verts were also used to order people to go
to the police station
• When her father went to the police station,
they forbade him to go home and he was sent
to a holding camp
• When her mother was giving birth to her 6th
child, Monique, her father received a special
pass that allowed him to return home for that
time
• In order to extend his pass, the family had to
go to the Gestapo headquarters in Orleans
Holding Camps in France
• There were many holding camps and
concentration camps in France even before the
war
• Following the 1940 defeat and the July 10 1940
vote of full powers in the Vichy regime, the
camps were filled with Jews, first with foreign
Jews, then with foreign and French Jews
• Holding camps were used to hold Jews who were
later deported to the extermination camps
Drancy Internment Camp
• Drancy Internment Camp was the most
famous of them all
• 65,000 Jews were deported from Drancy and
63,000 of those were murdered including
6000 children
• Only 2000 remained when Allied forces
liberated the camp on August 17 1944
Rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv- July 16 & 17 1942
• These 2 days have become known as the 2
most infamous days in French history
• It was nicknamed Operation Vent printanier
(“Operation Spring Breeze”)
• 13 000 Jews were rounded up and taken to
The Velodrome D’Hiver
• Once at the stadium, they were dispersed to
different holding camps
The Velodrome D’Hiver
• It was a bicycling racetrack and stadium but was also
used for ice hockey, wrestling, boxing, roller skating,
circuses, spectaculars and demonstrations
• It was the first permanent indoor track in France
• For the 1942 Summer Olympics, it hosted boxing,
cycling, fencing, weightlifting and wrestling events
• It was known for its Six-Day races
• A fire destroyed part of it in 1959 and the rest was
demolished
• A statue was placed there on July 17 1994 to represent
all deportees but especially those of the Vel’ D’Hiv
Safety
• Denise and her family were safe during the
roundup
• There was a law that said if you had a baby
under 2 years then you would be safe
• After the roundups, Denise’s aunt, uncle, 2
cousins and father all lived in the apartment
with Perla and her 6 children
• They had to pretend that their father was a
family friend and not their father
September 13 1942
• Denise considers this to be the worst day of her life
• 2 uniformed French soldiers and 1 Nazi not in uniform
forced open the door before anyone could hide in the
attic
• They took away her uncle, aunt and the oldest niece
• The niece wasn’t there at the time, so they took the
father instead
• They were taken to Drancy and then transported to
Auschwitz
• Her aunt and uncle were gassed instantly but her
father died in January 1945 in the Death March
Auschwitz
• Auschwitz was a network of concentration and
extermination camps built and operated in Polish
areas annexed by Nazi Germany
• It was the largest of the German concentration
camps
• Up to 3 million people died there (2.5 million
exterminated and 500 000 from disease and
starvation) and 90% of them were Jewish
• On January 27 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by
Soviet troops
Death March
• Towards the end of the war, as Britain, USA and the Soviet Union
approached concentration camps, the SS decided to abandon the
camps
• Thousands were killed before the marches started
• They were marched for dozens of miles in the snow to railway
stations, then transported for days at a time without food, water or
shelter in freight carriages for cattle
• When they arrived, they were forced to march again to the new
camp
• Auschwitz to Wodizislaw Slaski was the best known death march
that took place in January 1945
• 9 days before the Soviets arrived at Auschwitz, the SS marched
nearly 60 000 prisoners out of the camp
• Approximately 15 00 prisoners died on the way, including Denise’s
father
OSE and UGIF
• Denise’s mother was left at 32 years old with 6
children and her 2 nieces
• She turned to organizations like the OSE and
UGIF for help
OSE
• OSE was a French Jewish humanitarian organization that saved
hundreds of Jewish refugee children in Vichy France
• The OSE ran orphanages for Jewish children of various ages,
including infants, whose parents were either in Nazi concentration
camps or had been killed
• The children were schooled and trained according to their age
• To prepare children for possible future dangers, the OSE teachers
paid special attention to physical education and survival skills
• In 1942, the police began roundups and deportations from the
orphanages to Nazi concentration and extermination camps and the
OSE organized underground network in order to smuggle the
children to neutral countries
UGIF
• UGIF is the acronym for Union Generale Des Israelites De France
• It was a French Jewish council established on November 29 1941
• There were two separate UGIF organizations: UGIF-N for the
occupied area of France; and UGIF-S for the Vichy controlled area of
France
• These organizations took over all the various philanthropies and
social agencies created by the Jews
• They were subordinate to the commissioner-general for Jewish
affairs
• All Jews in France were required to pay dues to the UGID which
gave control of the substantial assets of the Jewish organizations to
Vichy officials and the Germans
Life on the Farm
• Denise’s mother sent the children to live with
Madame Baieux on a farm
• People were keen to hide the children because
they came with bread, food, and other rationed
products
• This was the children's’ first time being on a farm
and seeing farm animals
• Madame Baieux treated them terribly and they
were then Denise and the girls were moved to a
convent