From Sarah to Denise: The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Little Girl

By Annie Dhainaut-Mintz

When changing you identity is your only way to survive...
From Sarah to Denise, two first names for only one person.
In this moving testimony, the author plunges us into History. And it is above all the story of Sarah, a little girl that life and atrocity are going to change into Denise. How did one get to this ?
Terror, solidarity, fight for humanity, absolute horror and unconditional love : through the story of a child, of a family, this deeply moving work immerges us in an essentiel page of our French History. Terribly actual, this essential reading will not leave you unharmed.
Annie Dhainaut-Mintz was born in Niort in 1948.
With strength, patience and emotion, she has reconstituted her family history, that of her mother who is Sarah and Denise. She gives us here her first book.
A deeply touching testimony that will walk you through one of the most terrible times of our History.
EXCERPT
A few moments are enough for me to imagine the happiness that we would have had had being together, to discover through their origin another culture that would have transported me beyond the frontiers to my Polish family. But the ideology and the barbarism of a man decided this otherwise.
How to fill this immense void if not by telling their story, from the arrival of Benjamin and Ewa in France to the tragic destiny that led them and their family, to the death camps because they were Jews? This account is the finest homage that I can pay them so that they will also have their place in our memory.
The chronology of the story follows that of history. I reconstitute a puzzle of which the pieces have been scattered for a century.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Annie Dhainaut-Mintz was born in Niort in 1948. With strength, patience and emotion, she reconstitued her family's history and that of her mother, who is Sarah and Denise. From Sarah to Denise is her first book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishroom
• Release date: Jan 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9791023604566

Book preview

Remember only that I was innocent and, just like you, mortal on that day, I too, had had a face marked by rage, by pity and joy, quite family, a human face.

Benjamin Fondane,

1944, died at Auschwitz.

Testimony read at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

To my sisters, Martine and Sylvie

To my brother, Jean-Yves

To my children,

Stéphanie, Thomas and Matthieu

To my grandchildren

Etienne, Nicolas, Clément, Noah,

Benjamin, Adèle, Max and Paul

To my nephews and nieces

Antoine, Raphaël, Aurélia and Emilie

To my cousins Emilie and Hélène

Warms thanks to Elaine Harris and

Danièle Guérenneur for this English edition.

Foreword

I am dazed… On this 4th of January 2005 I represent my mother at the commission of indemnification for the victims of the anti-Semitic legislations in force under the Vichy regime. It took all these years for the French government to make a mea culpa and a reparation official. What a derisory act in the face of so many broken lives. But a salutary act with regard to those who today still deny the existence of the concentration camps and the genocide of the Jews.

July 1995, anniversary of the police roundup at the Winter Velodrome in Paris, the President of the Republic Jacques Chirac solemnly recognized the imprescriptible debt of the French State with regard to the seventy-six thousand Jews of France deported to Auschwitz who will not return. A commission of investigation, presided over by Jean Mattéoli has identified the public and private archives about the assets held by the banks and financial institutions coming from spoliations during the Second World War. In the same way, in the United States, the Jewish organizations pursued the same investigations for the people concerned. On January 18, 2001 the Franco-American agreements signed in Washington(1) ended the disagreement between the two countries about the despoilment question.

After the recognition of the facts, the time for compensation finally arrived under different forms, like the indemnisation programme, the creation of a Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah.

The Commission meeting behind closed doors gave a ruling on the dossier of my mother. It invited me to attend on January 4, 2005 rue de la Manutention in Paris to inform me of its conclusions. The meeting lasted for only a few minutes. A spokesman set out the despoiled property, the apartment and its contents, professional goods including merchandise, the Citroen car with its trailer, my grandparents had a hat business on the market at Niort, and the identity papers. The Committee proposes an indemnity of thirty thousand, five hundred euros. The silence sweeps through the room. Embarrassment could be seen on the faces of the five spokesmen present. They all look at me… They are all waiting for my agreement for this amount on which I have no hold. No compensation will ever replace the least human life. This meeting plunges me sixty-years back and will remain engraved in my memory. As never before, I realize the reasons why my grandparents died and I tremble with despair and anger.

A few moments are enough for me to imagine the happiness that we would have had had being together, to discover through their origin another culture that would have transported me beyond the frontiers to my Polish family. But the ideology and the barbarism of a man decided this otherwise.

How to fill this immense void if not by telling their story, from the arrival of Benjamin and Ewa in France to the tragic destiny that led them and their family, to the death camps because they were Jews? This account is the finest homage that I can pay them so that they will also have their place in our memory.

The chronology of the story follows that of history. I reconstitute a puzzle of which the pieces have been scattered for a century.

After assembling the souvenirs of the surviving relatives, the documents of my father about his engagement in the Resistance, the family photos, long years went by before I could start writing, because my sorrow and emotion were so great.

1881

Pascal et Amélina

my Catholic paternal grandparents

At Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux, domain of the Dukes of Aquitaine, my paternal grandparents, Pascal Géant and Amélina Légeron, were born respectively on April 17 and May 20 1881 in Catholic families. It was in this little village in Vendée, near Maillezais, at the border of the Marais Poitevin, that they got married on July 18, 1905. My aunt and my father were born in the neighbouring commune of Porte-de-l’Ile, Yvette was born on May 22, 1913 and Jean on April 18, 1920, in the family house recognizable by the palm tree planted in the garden, an emblematic tree that indicates that the owner is a Catholic. Close friends of my grandparents, Protestants, living in the Deux-Sèvres, planted a banana tree. This tree is also found in the gardens of sailors who passed Cape Horn leaving the Atlantic Coast.

Pascal’s father was a farmer. Amélina’s was a weaver; he made his daughter’s trousseau of which a few sheets are still left that I still use today. On these immense pieces of coarse material, Amélina finely embroidered her initials A.L. with red stitches. A century later I still admire the work of the weaver and the quality of the material. My great-grandfather also wove a cloth called droguet (drugget) made of wool and cotton or only wool. This cloth, which could be luxurious was ordinary most of the time and was used to make everyday clothes.

Pascal whom I did not know is a handsome man, tall, with a slightly turned up moustache. His bearing is haughty in his military uniform