New York – The Extraordinary Tale of a Survivor Who Discovered Sixty Years Later That His Mother Is Alive

New York – In the last twenty years, hundreds of survivors of the Holocaust have been reunited, thanks in part to the fall of the Soviet Union, the advent of the electronic age and Yad Vashem’s newly digitalized resource service. Cousins, neighbors and occasionally even siblings have been brought together. Rarely, however, have parent and child lived on for sixty years without turning over the world, so to speak, to find each other.

One aging survivor living in Tucson, Arizona, and his Californian sister suddenly found out that their mother, long believed to have perished in 1943 in a German death camp, had in fact survived. Municipal records dating as late as 1947 – bearing her signature – indicate that she actively searched for her two children, whom she had handed over to a Catholic monastery to give them a chance at survival.

This dramatic tale of the mother’s survival is documented by an old permit issued by the Belgian authorities after the war, the dry language of a graphologist’s report, and the determination of a rabbi to uncover the mystery surrounding his grandmother’s disappearance sixty years ago.

Alfred Friedmann and his sister, Mary, spent the war years in a Belgian convent’s orphanage. They were placed there in June 1943 by their mother, Elizabeth, who was concerned about the increasing hostility of the local population against the Jews.Copyright 2009 by Hamodia

Ten-year-old Alfred, born in Cologne, Germany, and his seven-year-old sister were subjected to cruel punishments for minor infractions at the convent. The orphanage, which doubled as a rehabilitation facility for delinquent youths, dealt harshly with the two Jewish children in their care. They beat them for not heeding rules, deprived them of several meals in succession, and made them stand at attention for long periods of time. The only thing that Alfred looked forward to was the monthly visits from his mother. She managed to visit them only twice before she disappeared; Alfred and Mary never saw her again. An aunt later reported to them that she had information that their mother had been sent to Auschwitz and killed in the ovens where human beings were mercilessly turned into acrid smoke. Copyright 2009 by Hamodia

The Friedmann children had not always known such a harsh existence. Before the war, Alfred recalls, he felt warm and safe, with loving parents and a comfortable life in Antwerp.

“We had a good family life then,” he says nostalgically. “We had a nice family; we were close.”

That happy life started to unravel on May 10, 1940, when the Germans invaded neutral Belgium on their way to conquer France. France’s Maginot Line of defense was considered impregnable – but its Achilles’ heel proved to be Belgium. As the French reinforced their border with Germany, the Germans bypassed it by overrunning Belgium, which was a neutral country north of France with an unfortified border. This brought Belgium’s small but wealthy Jewish community – already harboring thousands of refugees from other German-occupied nations – under Nazi rule.

Belgium’s occupation did not affect the children at first, says Alfred.Copyright 2009 by Hamodia

“As children under the protection and guardianship of our parents, we did not comprehend the political traumas and discrimination that prevailed against Jews even in Belgium – other than being warned to stay out of harm’s way.”

That changed very soon.

Seeing clearly the handwriting on the wall, Michael Friedmann packed up his family’s possessions in a four-wheeled pushcart and headed toward France with his wife, son, daughter and sister-in-law, Yolan. At some time during the trip they were forced to leave the cart with all its contents behind and continue the journey into France by train.

On more than one occasion, says Alfred, the train came under machine-gun fire and bombing from the air. The passengers then had to disembark and seek shelter in nearby fields. Alfred remembers walking together with hundreds of other refugees along a highway lined on both sides with bodies. Their arrival in France was a cause for celebration – but only for a short while.Copyright 2009 by Hamodia

With no place to live, the family hid in barns, sharing stalls and sleeping alongside cows and horses. One morning shortly after they reached their destination in a northeastern French city adjacent to the English Channel, an eerie quiet seemed to lay over the area. The distinctive uniforms of the French soldiers and their allies were not in evidence, and guns, canned goods, chocolates and candies were scattered all over the farm areas. It was June 24, 1940; the Germans had followed the Friedmanns to France.

In what was now a familiar ritual, the family wearily headed back to Antwerp, where they were forced – together with other Jewish families – to move for a short while to a village in Flanders, the northern region of Belgium. They had to live in a communal shelter, forage for food in harvested fields, and beg for other basic needs.

In 1942, not long after their return to Brussels (the Flemish capital of Belgium), Michael Friedmann was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Auschwitz, where he was gassed.Copyright 2009 by Hamodia

After running from place to place in Brussels for a few months trying to elude the Nazis, their mother, as a security measure, placed her two children in the Catholic orphanage for safekeeping. They stayed there until the war’s end – a period of three years.Copyright 2009 by Hamodia

Already disoriented by their forced separation from their parents, Alfred and Mary were also prevented from seeing each other. On rare occasions they spotted each other from a distance, but verbal communication was not permitted under the strict discipline of the home.

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