Monday, April 2, 2012

In My Dad's Own Words: Roundups in Paris 1941

In 1941 I had a deviated septum operation on my nose at a clinic in Belleville. I had to stay a couple days there. My father, David, came to visit me. When he arrived he was very shook up and out of breath. He had taken the Metro from Paris two stops and got off at the Belleville station. The clinic was at Boulevard de Belleville and he had to walk a few hundred yards from the station. When he exited the Metro car there were four exits, one on each of the four corners of the Boulevard. Somehow he went out a different exit than his usual. Upon arriving at street level he looked around him and could not believe his eyes. The other three exits were completed surrounded by Police with Germans. Busses were waiting to fill up with all the Jews they could find. My father, by pure luck, had taken the one exit that was not surrounded and avoided being captured.

New Discovery: Document found on Mom's History

Josh Korman sent me this link to my mom's home town: Elberfeld, Wuppertal Germany's synagogue http://alte-synagoge-wuppertal.de/index.php?id=13&L=1. There I found a document listing all Jewish people buried in the cemetery there. I found my mom's mother - Grandma Screnca Bugaisky, my mom's little sister Elli, and my mom's cousin Rosa Gelkopf. Ellie died of meningitis, in October 1929 at the age of 4. Three months later Screnza died at a clinic after a medical procedure to enable her to have another child. Coincidently 3 months later cousin Rosa died during childbirth.