The Heschel School

 

Sonia Lipschutz (née Polakoff) was born to a relatively affluent and educated family in Minsk, Russia in 1914. They moved to Antwerp, Belgium, in 1923, where they spent the next 16 years assimilating and enjoying the liberties afforded Jews there. Sonia married Willie Lipschutz in 1940 and they had a daughter, Michele, in 1941.

They survived the Holocaust by paying smugglers to get them to Vichy France. They lived a fearful existence using false identity papers in Uzerche, a town in Central France that was miraculously spared the extreme fate of other regions occupied by German forces.

The family made their way to Paris after it was liberated in August 1944 and then returned to Belgium. Willie resumed his work in the diamond business and passed away in 1992 at the age of 89. Sonia was a homemaker and a devoted mother to Michelle, She later relished her four grandsons and five great-grandchildren, including Heschel student William Rose. A sixth great-grandchild who is also a Heschel student, Charlotte Sophia Rose, was born one year after Sonia's death at 91 in 2005. She carries her name and her sense of humor.

 

Stories of the Holocaust, As Told to Me By My Grandmother

By Dan Rose 

My Grandmother, Sonia Lipschutz (née Polakoff) was born in Minsk Russia in 1914. She hailed from a relatively affluent and educated family. Her mother, Anna, attended dental school in the early 1900s. Her father Boris was paper goods salesman. In 1923, Sonia and her older brother Ossia joined their parents and escaped the aftermath of the Russian revolution and emigrated to Israel (then Palestine). A summer in the desert heat was enough to convince them to look for greener pastures.  Within a few months, they gained permission to move to Antwerp, Belgium. They spent the next 16 years assimilating and enjoying the relative freedoms afforded by life in Belgium. And on March 10, 1940 Sonia married my grandfather, Willie Lipshutz.  Willie was born in Krakow, Poland in 1903, to Israel and Esther. He had two brothers and one sister. In 1906, they left Poland for Belgium. Once in Antwerp, Israel began working in the diamond business; Willie would join him in 1921.

Everything changed in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, triggering a declaration of war by France and England.  Nevertheless, as in 1914, Belgium had declared its neutrality. Although that neutrality was broken during World War I, many Belgians were hopeful that, this time around, it would hold. In fact, most of the world felt that France and its famed Maginot line, as well as its overwhelming number of men, would lead to a quick Allied victory.  Obviously, the opposite was true, and by May 1940 the German Blitzkrieg bulldozed its way through Belgium in less than three weeks. This allowed them to flank the French and quickly overwhelm the combined Allied forces.

Despite the fact that Hitler's vitriol of anti-Semitic rantings were well documented, most Belgian Jews were wholly unprepared for the extent of the atrocities that the Germans would unleash.  Nevertheless, as most of the Jews were refugees from Eastern Europe, they had an ingrained mistrust of government, a trait that would serve Sonia and her family well. During the beginning of the occupation, most Jews had their liberties curtailed but still enjoyed enough freedom of passage to give them a false sense of hope. But these liberties were short lived, as the civil administration soon passed laws severely restricting the rights of Jews to own property and businesses and banned them from certain occupations. In 1942 an edict was passed forcing all Jews to wear a yellow star at all times. This was quickly followed by an effort to deport the Jews to concentration camps. Yet, the efforts found many opponents among the local population. Of the 75,000 Jews residing in Belgium, it's estimated, that 40% were hidden by Gentiles, particularly Catholic priests and nuns. Also, given their general distrust of governments, the Jews often ignored most of the edicts. Nevertheless, a total of more than 25,000 Jews were deported, of whom, less than 2000 survived.

My grandparents were among the lucky ones. The first years of the occupation were relatively easy. My mother was born in Belgium on July 25, 1941, and my grandparents were still able to come and go as they pleased. But in early 1942, all of the Jews were forced to don the dreaded yellow star. This would mark the turning point for most of the Jews, as they were now branded and would soon be rounded up and deported. Therefore, in early 1942 my Grandparents began formulating an escape plan. There were few options available. The most promising option was to make it to France.

They paid smugglers to whisk them away. They packed up whatever belongings they could carry and paid a driver to help them make their way to France. They ingeniously took my grandmother's high heeled shoes and hollowed out the heels.  They managed to transport enough diamonds to help them survive for the next four years. My Grandmother remembered that a pass was prominently displayed in the corner of the front windshield.  This proved effective as they were able to pass through all military checkpoints with relative ease.  It wasn't until they arrived in Vichy, France that my grandmother noticed that the pass was nothing more than a Brussels to Paris train ticket. Yet it must have looked official enough, and the mere confidence of the drivers allowed them to pass through unharmed. Interestingly enough, she realized that, had she studied the pass with a bit more diligence, she would have never taken the risk, a risk that became all too obvious on a different journey. My grandmother's brother, Ossia, and his family left on a different day. My great uncle Ossia had been sitting in the back left seat for most of the journey. They took a pit stop and decided to allow the passengers to switch seats. This proved to be a fateful decision, as my Great-Uncle moved to the front passenger seat.  Soon enough, they approached a German army checkpoint. But this time the driver became nervous. He quickly turned the car around. This raised the alarm and the Germans began shooting at the car.  Despite the shooting the car was able to escape.  Unfortunately, one of the bullets crashed through the rear window and instantly killed the occupant of the rear seat, the same seat occupied by my Great Uncle a mere minutes ago.

In Lyon, they needed to find a place to rest during the night. They found an unlikely refuge, a brothel. The proprietor allowed them to occupy the attic, with strict instructions that they couldn't make any noise. Sage advice, considering that the clientele was made up entirely of French collaborators or German soldiers. My mother was less than a year old at the time, and obviously prone to crying when hungry. To keep her from crying, my grandfather would spend the nights cradling her in his arms and walking softly around the attic. They stayed a few weeks in the brothel, until they could find new and less "noisy" accommodation.  Despite their unusual habitation, they had made it to the Free Zone and were now living as the family Lenoir from Alsace.

Nevertheless, they still wanted to make their way out France.  They decided to make their way to the Swiss border and found a priest willing to transport them to the neutral nation. They arrived at a safe house and spent a few nights with other families waiting for an opportune time to carry out the trek. The Swiss border was heavily guarded, both on the French and Swiss side. The Swiss didn't want to draw the ire of the Axis powers and maintained a strict policy of interdicting political refugees. The only way into the country was often through the difficult terrain of the Alps. One night, a family was told to get ready for the crossing. They had arrived before my family and were due to leave first. My grandmother and her family tried to leave with them, but their pleading fell on deaf ears. Much like my Great Uncle's decision, this, too, proved fateful. The next morning, they found out that the family had perished at the border.

My family moved around France and soon took up residence in the village of Uzerche, in Central France. They lived in a single room and had no running water.  It had become compulsory for all men of working age to do some type of community service.  My Grandfather worked as a railroad night's watchman. His responsibility included preventing the resistance from sabotaging the tracks. Instead he worked with the resistance to provide shelter and provisions to the resistance. For his work, he received a commendation from the postwar government.

Money was obviously an issue. When they left Belgium, my grandparents were able to smuggle a fair amount of diamonds. During their time in Uzerche, my Grandmother would travel monthly by train to Lyons.  She would transport diamonds in the heel of her shoes and sell them in the city.  She would then come back with enough funds for the month. On one of the trips, a German soldier demanded her papers. He studied her identity card intently and then began a barrage of questions. He then began yelling at her and claiming that he knew she was a Jew. She stood fast and denied his accusations. He proceeded to take out a hunting knife. She flinched, anticipating the worst. But his knife wasn't destined for her; instead, he propped the ID card against the wall of the train and used his knife to carve out the word JUDEN. He then gave her back the ID card and let her go. Only with time and great efforts by my grandmother, was she able to erase the outline of his knife's work.

In another incident, my grandmother's six-year-old nephew, Serge, who had moved into the same village, was speaking to another child in the local cafe. For whatever reason, the conversation turned to family members. He loudly proclaimed that his aunt Sophie had two names. Briefly, the fear of discovery became all too apparent.  They couldn't whisk him away, as it would only lead to further suspicion. A moment later, but an eternity to my family, my cousin said, "We call her Aunt Sophie, and just auntie".  It goes without saying that the name Sonia Lipshutz would not have been well received.

At the beginning of the month of June 1944, members of the 2^nd SS Panzer Division entered the town of Uzerche. They proceeded to round up all of the villagers and brought forward some seemingly random inhabitants. They proclaimed that these men had been members of the resistance and hung them in the public square. A few days later a rumor hit the village that the same German unit had stopped in the neighboring town, Oradour sur Glane. There, they rounded up the entire town, they locked up all of the women and children in the church. The separated men were brought to barns, where they were shot. Most were shot in the legs, unable to move, and then the SS covered them with fuel and burned them alive. Then the church was set ablaze, killing all but one of the women and children. In the end, a total of 642 of the 643 inhabitants of the village were murdered in cold blood.  When told of the atrocity, and mindful of the atrocity she had just witnessed at the hands of the same men, my grandmother recalled that the stories must have been fabricated. "How could anyone be that cruel?" Even in her worst fears, she couldn't imagine the depths of the Nazi brutality.

In August of that year, Paris was liberated. Although, Uzerche and much of France was still under German control, my family made their way to Paris. They arrived in September and were finally allowed to live free of any persecution.  My mother was only three at the time, yet she remembers the drastic change in her lifestyle.  For the first time she got to enjoy white bread, a full meal and running water. In fact, she was so enamored by a running toilet that she spent an entire day flushing it.  By 1946, my family returned to Belgium, but only to find that many of their friends and family had not been as lucky.  Sonia often told me: When we returned, we felt as if we were walking in a cemetery. So many of our friends had perished.  Sonia Lipshutz went on to live the rest of her life in Antwerp, Belgium. Her husband, Willie, passed away at 89 in 1992, and Sonia passed away at the ripe old age of 93 in 2007. She only had one child, my mother, but had four grandsons, and six great-grandchildren. At the end of her life she told me, "I forget that I'm 93, my mind feels the same it did at 23.  It's only when I look in the mirror that I realize how old I am. Life passes in a flash.  The only two periods that didn't go fast were my childhood and the war years.  During the war each day felt like an eternity."