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Testimony Excerpts :: Rachel G.
A Belgian hidden child describes the Gestapo's search for her
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Excerpts copyright © 1996, Yale University Library.
Rachel G. was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1934, and enjoyed a happy
childhood prior to the German invasion. Forced to wear the yellow star,
she rebelled against it when other children would not play with her, despite
her mother's warnings that it was the law. An official notification that
she could no longer attend school prompted her parents to seek a hiding
place for her. Their landlady's nephew was a priest who assisted in placing
Rachel in a convent. Rachel endured a painful parting from her parents
to go "with strangers." The last time she saw her father was when he visited
the convent on her birthday, bringing her gifts she vividly describes.
Often traveling at night, Rachel moved frequently from convent to convent,
changing her name each time, always accompanied by clergy. Kind priests
and nuns gave her religious instruction, so she would not be discovered.
One incident occurred when she was living with six nuns at a seminary
in Louvain.
"One day the Gestapo came in and
the Carmelite - they were Carmelite nuns, and as you know the men cannot
go there. It's one of their rules; they cannot see men. They knocked on
the door and we want her - with the guns and all - we want that Jewish
child. We know you have a Jewish child there. And the nuns said absolutely
not. We don't have anybody. And they broke the door. And what I will never
forget is that the six nuns, they had a big basket of laundry that they
carried three on the side, because there was a lot of laundry for all
of these priests. And they pushed me in that laundry to hide me and they
put all the linen on top. That happened like in one second. And that's
how I was saved."
Eventually Rachel was placed with a foster family in Virton, where she
felt cherished and loved. She insisted on rising early to attend Mass,
since the church ritual gave her a sense of belonging and safety. Ten
months after the war ended, her mother returned from Auschwitz in such
emaciated condition that Rachel did not recognize her. Rachel harbored
resentment that her parents had abandoned her to strangers, a feeling
she reconciled when she later understood that had they not hidden her,
she would have doomed herself and her mother to death in the gas chambers.
After a difficult recuperation, her mother married a survivor. Rachel
notes the miracle of her brother's birth a few years later, "because the
two of them with the number and coming from hell and they had this beautiful
boy. It's, after that I think I believe in God when I think about my brother."
Rachel reflects upon humanity - the wonderful people who sheltered her
and those that tried to kill her - both being the same species. She discusses
her continuing relationship with her foster family and others who helped
her. She hopes to live her life as a good human being, helping others,
regardless of their ethnic, racial, or religious background.
Rachel G. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-139). Fortunoff Video Archive
for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
The length of the complete testimony is 42 minutes. A catalog
record is available for this testimony in Orbis, the Yale University
Library online public access catalog. Please see the Catalog
and research guide section of this site for more information.
An edited version of this
testimony is available for loan to
schools and community groups.
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