When Doris was in England, a man named Dr. Sturges took great interest in helping orphaned and displaced children from the war. He gave Doris books, fueling her love for reading. On one occasion in 1943, she was gifted "Sir Percy Lead the Band" by…
The Office National des Anciens Combattants et Victims de Guerre (The National Office for Veterans and Victims of War) sent a "certificate of disappearance" concerning Monique's mother, Valentine. The certificate did not recognize that she died at…
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, they forced all Polish Jews to wear identity badges. Selma was under the age of 6 and not understanding the situation, recalled feeling jealous that Edith wore a badge, but she did not.
Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels was the first to suggest a "general distinguishing mark" for German Jews in May 1938. German SS and police official Reinhard Heydrich reiterated the proposal idea on November 12, 1938, during a meeting with…
By May 1942, the German military commander in France ordered all Jews over 6 to wear a yellow star. The star, about the size of a person's palm, had the inscription, Juif ("Jew" in French). Monique did not wear the identity badge because she hid…
A photograph of the "customs canal" in Marseille where Monique's father, Jules, worked as a ship chandler and owned a shop. When the Nazis invaded France, it was taken from him for "Aryanization."
The Drancy camp was a multistory complex that imprisoned and deported a majority of Jews from France. The U-shaped building was initially built in the 1930s as a housing project. Approximately 70,000 prisoners passed through Drancy between August…
Pictured are Edith Shapiro, born in 1935, and Selma Rossen, born in 1936, in Zloczów, Poland. The sisters were hidden children during the duration of the war. With their parents, they immigrated to the United States in 1946.