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The Heroes of La Hille

Were it not for heroic action by several groups and many individuals, the history of the Children of La Hille would be a relatively brief obituary of yet another group of innocent victims murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. This is why their story is not complete without a detailed account of the heroes of this history. They are reported here partly by chronology and partly by category, rather than in any order of importance. The readers can and may draw their own ranking, though none is needed nor desired.

Foremost among these heroes were the desperate Jewish parents in Germany and Austria who did what even a few years earlier would have been unthinkable—sending their young children away to a foreign country where their well-being and safety would be up to the benevolence of strangers and where most of them did not even speak or understand the language. In 1938–39, these parents already had anxious forebodings that they might never see their children again. Had they lacked the courage of sending their youngsters away, many of the Children of La Hille would have perished with their families in the gas chambers in Poland a few years later.

“The act of giving up one’s child, of surrendering one’s own daughter or son, of recognizing that one no longer could protect and shelter that small person to whom one had given life, was the first and most radical step in the chain of rescue. It was a paradox: to save one’s child one had to accept that one was unable to protect and defend the child,” wrote Prof. Debórah Dwork in Children with a Star.¹ She concludes, “it would be a mistake to say that these people alone [persons and organizations who accepted the children] however estimable, just, kind, considerate, or accommodating they may have been, saved the children. It was the parents who took the first and most terrifying step of all.”²

Crediting the La Hille children’s parents above all else diminishes in no way the crucial role and contribution of their Belgian rescuers. It was the Belgian attorney and Jewish leader Max Gottschalk who initiated the creation of the Comité d’Assistance aux Enfants Juifs Réfugiés (CAEJR) in December 1938, immediately after Kristallnacht. Active since 1933 in assisting Jewish refugees from Germany, Gottschalk helped the committee members to lobby the Belgian government toward its decision to grant the refugee children a temporary stay in Belgium. After he escaped to New York City in 1940, he rendered valuable assistance to Mme Felddegen and her colleagues in procuring the guarantee from exiled Belgian prime minister Paul-Henri Spaak to allow the La Hille refugee children to return to Belgium after the war if the United States would allow them entry. His readiness to use his excellent connections in high places contributed importantly to the children’s safety, though none ever knew his name or about his involvement.

Mere words cannot describe the devotion and selfless actions of the members of the Belgian women’s committee (CAEJR). The value of their influence, caring involvement, and total devotion to “nos pauvres enfants” (our poor children), as they often referred to us, did not surface until the discovery, a few years ago, of the personal archive of Mme Lilly Felddegen and the correspondence of Marguérite (Guétia) Goldschmidt-Brodsky, leaders of the Belgian committee.

While we had been sent away by our birth parents, the women of the committee acted as though we were indeed their own children when we were in Belgium and throughout our stay in Vichy France. Besides these two leaders, the other committee members who were most active are Mme Renée deBecker-Remy and Mme Alfred Wolff.

During our stay in Belgium, the Committee women were fully occupied with raising and contributing the funds for our upkeep, finding host families for many, staffing the several boys’ and girls’ homes, and facilitating the safe emigration of at least several dozen children from Belgium to other countries. The women of the committee not only assured our admission to Belgium, they also guaranteed our care and maintenance, including medical and dental services, which the Belgian government had required as a condition of our admission.

When the German invasion in 1940 threatened to catch up with the children under their care, Mme Goldschmidt-Brodsky quickly returned from a visit to Paris and probably played an important role in deciding our flight to France (no direct documentation or proof has been discovered on this subject, however).

Immediately after our arrival in Seyre, France in late May 1940, Mme Felddegen and Mr. Gottschalk undertook steps with the US government from New York to try to bring all of us to the United States. Mme Goldschmidt-Brodsky, who had fled with her husband to Cahors, north of Toulouse, soon was in touch with Gaspard deWaay, the director of the colony at Seyre, and in September personally negotiated our colony’s takeover by the Secours Suisse, another action that contributed directly to the survival of most of our children.

Although the effort to bring the entire colony to the United States did not succeed, Mme Felddegen continued to work day-in, day-out from the offices of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in New York to find other means of rescuing the La Hille children. By allying herself with the leaders of a New York-based rescue committee, of which Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt was an honorary member, she succeeded in having seventeen La Hille children included in that committee’s rescue of 100 children by special permission of the US government.

Mme Felddegen continued her support and rescue efforts until nothing more could be done in 1943 and Mme Goldschmidt-Brodsky made determined efforts from Basel, Switzerland, after she and her husband had escaped there from Cahors, including requests for help from the US chargé d’affaires S. Pinkney Tuck in Vichy, whose wife she had met in Brussels, as well as with Walter H. Sholes, the US consul in Basel.³

While Alexander Frank played a lesser role than his wife Elka Frank (who was the directrice at the girls’ home in Belgium) before we fled from Brussels, his total commitment, energy, and leadership were essential to our survival at Seyre during the fall and the severe winter of 1940. He had replaced Gaspard deWaay as leader of the colony in the summer of 1940.

Only those who endured those difficult months of shortages of food, clothing, and everything else needed by the children, as well as the illnesses and apprehensions, can comprehend the important role played by Alex Frank during that period. Describing the desperate food situation in the area’s stores, he stated that “because our special efforts were successful, we have been able to provide for our children at Seyre a privileged situation[,] but I am worried about the future.”⁴ In the same letter he sought instructions in case the Secours Suisse decided to abandon the children or if other major problems occurred. He obviously took his responsibilities very seriously and was largely responsible for our well-being and survival from the fall of 1940 to the spring of 1941.

A separate book should be written about the stewardship, devoted management, and diplomatic skills of Maurice Dubois, the délégué (administrator) of the Secours Suisse for all of Vichy France, with headquarters in Toulouse. Ably assisted by his wife Eleanor Dubois, he had the authority for decisions regarding the colony at La Hille, appointed and supervised the staff, and provided the liaison with the often critical and disinterested authorities of the Swiss Red Cross and the Swiss government in Bern.

His diplomatic skills were valuable in that he had to deal constantly with the Vichy French bureaucracy, which was hostile to foreigners and to Jews. In the face of shortages of funds, food, clothing, and other necessities, he played the role of guardian angel for the children of La Hille and expressed his interest and concern by regular visits to Seyre and to La Hille. In August 1942 he intervened personally in Vichy and enlisted the help of the Swiss embassy to prevent the deportation of the forty teenagers and adult Jewish staff members who had been interned at Le Vernet. He literally saved their lives.

A few months later he found himself in the delicate situation of defending La Hille colony director Rösli Näf and several other colleagues, as well as his own role, because the authorities in Bern became upset over the assistance given to the older La Hille teenagers who attempted to cross illegally into Switzerland and Spain. More than any other individual, Maurice Dubois can be credited with achieving the survival of the La Hille children. It was certainly appropriate that Maurice Dubois was honored as one of the “Righteous among the Nations” at Yad Vashem in Israel in May 1995.

Equally important and praiseworthy are the actions and contributions to the children’s survival of Rösli Näf, who was in charge at La Hille from the spring of 1941 until she was dismissed and left this post on May 6, 1943. She volunteered to come to France and work for the Secours Suisse and was appointed by Dubois to replace Alexander Frank primarily so that the colony would have a non-Jewish Swiss leader in dealings with hostile French authorities.

Rösli Näf accomplished these relationships with dedication and success, especially in connection with Mme Authié, the refugee lists manager of the Ariège Préfecture. Though she was not always successful in relating to the older teenagers, Rösli Näf took personal charge to protect the members of the colony when hostile gendarmes invaded La Hille and arrested forty teenagers and several Jewish staff members in August 1942. Just thirty-one years old, she joined them voluntarily at the Le Vernet internment camp and was instrumental in dealing with the authorities toward their liberation.

Totally devoted to the children, she then tried, unsuccessfully, to lobby in Bern for their admission to Switzerland. When this attempt failed, she actively assisted the older boys and girls with their plans to flee across the Swiss and Spanish borders. She provided them with maps, food, and funds and traveled to the Swiss border area when the group of five La Hille teenagers was caught as they tried to escape into Switzerland.

Her actions drew the ire and criticism of the higher-ups in Switzerland and resulted in her interrogation by Ambassador Stucki and dismissal from her post by Secours Suisse chief Colonel Remund. Rösli Näf was directly responsible or related to the rescue of almost thirty of the La Hille boys and girls who escaped across the borders in 1942–43, not to mention the safekeeping and hiding of many of the younger children who had remained at La Hille. Castigated and humiliated for her heroic actions at that time by her Swiss superiors (but not by Dubois or Ambassador Stucki), Rösli Näf, too, was appropriately designated as “Righteous among the Nations” at Yad Vashem on May 7, 1989.

Anne-Marie Im Hof-Piguet is another of the Swiss La Hille caretakers who was honored at Yad Vashem (on July 16, 1990), and rightly so. Only twenty-seven years old when she arrived at La Hille on May 6, 1943, her independent, almost rebellious spirit caused her to disregard the Swiss authorities’ prohibitions against helping our children to escape. Her determination and courageous actions saved several of the La Hille colony members from the escalating Nazi persecution. Daringly, she first guided Addi Nussbaum across the Swiss border near her father’s home area. She played a role in the illegal Swiss border crossing of Edith Moser and Manfred Kamlet, and then accompanied Edith Goldapper and later Walter Kamlet and Flora Schlesinger and her son Paul on their difficult journeys to safety.

It was Anne-Marie who made the connection with the Cordier sisters, who guided a number of the La Hille refugees across the Swiss border. It is noteworthy that most of her rescue operations were carried out after her Swiss superiors had issued a strong edict that specifically prohibited such actions by the Secours Suisse staff members.

Another, perhaps more “laid-back,” Swiss hero of La Hille was Eugen Lyrer. Functioning as teacher of the middle and older children, he contributed immeasurably to the educational and cultural advancement of his charges. They recall that he exposed them to European literature and led extended discussions, all during an epoch when they were unable to receive regular formal schooling.

Eugen Lyrer also played an important role by misleading and misinforming the frequent police patrols who came looking for La Hille teenagers. When particular fleeing teenagers were secretly leaving La Hille in the middle of the night, Eugen Lyrer would accompany them for several miles through the countryside to help assure a safe start of their hazardous journey. Many of the older colony members remember him fondly as a solid and valued supporter and protector.

35. Toni Steuer at Seyre (late 1940) in front of powdered milk barrel provided by the Secours Suisse. From the author’s personal collection.

The same can be said of Sebastian Steiger, another young Swiss counselor/teacher who was fully occupied, between 1943 and 1944, with caring for the youngest boys and girls. He not only conducted classes for these children, he also was in charge of their recreation activities, took care of frequent medical and psychological problems and, in short, was truly a substitute parent, which was a special need of the younger children. Many of them remained closely related to him in later life. Steiger also was honored at Yad Vashem for his actions in 1993 and is described as “more than a teacher” in a Swiss anthology of Yad Vashem honorees.⁵ Steiger and Im Hof-Piguet both have written very useful books recounting their recollections as La Hille staff members.

A listing of the Swiss “heroes” of La Hille must include Gret Tobler, who accompanied Inge Bernhard and Toni Rosenblatt to safety in Switzerland under dangerous circumstances, Margrit Tännler who helped bring Inge Joseph across the Swiss border, and Emma Ott, who, as director of the colony, had to navigate carefully between the German-French persecutors and her Swiss superiors’ instructions of strict neutrality during the colony’s final year.

Although they played a lesser role, Henri (“Heiri”) and Anneliese Kägi also served loyally as teacher and caretaker, respectively. Their wedding near La Hille in March 1944 was a special occasion for the younger children.

Outstanding among the French persons who played an important role in the survival of the La Hille people is Victoria Cordier, the courageous then twenty-four-year-old activist of the resistance movement. Connected to La Hille through Anne-Marie Im Hof-Piguet, whose home area is not far across the Swiss border from Victoria’s mother’s home, the young Frenchwoman guided nine members of the colony across the heavily guarded border cliff near her mother’s isolated house in the hilly Jura mountain area north of Geneva.

With assistance from her sisters Madeleine and Marie-Aimée, Victoria Cordier led the following La Hille refugees across the dangerous border, with great risk to her own life and in very difficult terrain: Addi Nussbaum, Inge Joseph, Edith Moser, Manfred Kamlet, Edith Goldapper, Inge Schragenheim, Walter Kamlet, and Flora Schlesinger and her son Paul. Her rescues took place over a period of months while she did the same for dozens of others fleeing from the Nazis and French police. She also acted as information courier for French and Swiss intelligence organizations. Victoria Cordier is another of the La Hille heroes who was honored as one of the “Righteous among the Nations.” She recorded her actions in the publication “Ce que je n’oublierai jamais . . .” (I shall never forget this . . .).⁶

After all is said and done, by far the most noteworthy “heroes of La Hille” are the teenagers and children of the colony themselves. In the history of the Holocaust few examples exceed their survival instinct, their endurance, and the gritty determination to escape and survive in the face of the ever mounting threats and danger under which they had to live.

The prime example of their spirit and determination is the story of the four teenagers, each about sixteen years old, who joined the Franc-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP) French resistance forces in the late spring of 1944. Georges Herz, Egon Berlin, Joseph Dortort, and Kurt “Onze” Klein had recently left the château to establish themselves in a hideout in the countryside not far from La Hille in order to escape the repeated searches by the police authorities.

An Alsatian named Schnee engaged them to cut trees in the nearby woods. When German forces killed several young Maquis resistance fighters and civilians in an engagement near Vira (about twenty-five kilometers east of La Hille) on June 9, 1944, word of the tragedy spread and reached the La Hille youngsters in their hideout. Egon Berlin is said to have exclaimed, “If we don’t act, who will? Let’s go fight the Germans, let’s join the Maquis. . . .”⁷

Egon, Kurt, and Joseph contacted their friend Rudi Oehlbaum at a nearby farm and headed in the direction of Vira. At first they fell into the hands of Spanish guerilla fighters, but then were accepted by “Daniel,” a French Maquis leader. They were now ready to fight the French milice (Vichy militia) and the German occupation troops.

“Onze” was seventeen, and the other three were each just sixteen years old. Their French Maquis fellow fighters, for the most part, were under twenty years old and their objective was to waylay and harass German troops and French militia soldiers in preparation for the expected Allied landings on the Mediterranean coast. They had to adopt new names, in case they were captured.

Egon Berlin became “Paul Berdin” and soon was nicknamed “Petit Paul.”⁸ He was one of the youngest maquisards (Maquis members) of their group. Capturing arms, providing food for the group, committing sabotage, and punishing French collaborators were their main activities.

On July 1, almost a month after the June 6 invasion in Normandy, the group of young fighters moved into the hilly area near the hamlet of Roquefixade, about thirteen kilometers east of Foix. Five days later French militia forces arrived in the area to hunt down the partisans. In the ensuing battle on the hillside, seventeen of the young fighters were killed, including the sixteen-year-old Egon Berlin of La Hille. A monument on the site draws veterans for a commemoration service every year. Egon Berlin is buried beneath a monument to the fallen in the cemetery at Pamiers, along with several of the other victims.⁹ In March 2003 the entrance hall of a Pamiers high school in the Ariège region was named “Salle Egon Berlin” in his honor.¹⁰

“Onze” Klein was taken prisoner by French police forces during this battle and detained in Toulouse until liberation. Joseph Dortort and Rudi Oehlbaum were able to escape and Rudi later joined the French Foreign Legion.

At least six members of the La Hille population became allied soldiers and thus were able to participate in the efforts to defeat their German persecutors—another remarkable aspect of the colony which is unusual in the history of the Holocaust, especially regarding teenagers.

36. Three of the La Hille sixteen-year-olds who joined the Maquis Resistance fighters in 1944. From left: Rudi Oehlbaum, Egon Berlin, and Joseph Dortort. Egon was killed in a battle near Roquefixade at age sixteen. From the author’s personal collection.

Former colony director Alexander Frank and his wife Elka, who had escaped across the Spanish border in 1943, managed to reach England in September of that year. “There I was transferred to the Belgian military authorities and volunteered to be an air gunner in the Royal Air Force,” he recalled in a letter written in 1997. “In the last month of the war I was posted to participate in operations over Germany. Our planes were USA-made ‘Mitchells.’ Until February 1946 I was stationed with the RAF [Royal Air Force] near Osnabrück [Germany].”¹¹

Joseph Dortort, the teenage member of the Maquis, participated in the liberation of Foix and Pamiers, the main towns in the region near La Hille. “By the end of 1944 we were asked to sign up [with the French army] for the duration or go home,” he recalls.

“After training on the Riviera, equipped with American arms, we were part of the First French Army that had come out of North Africa. Then we went to Alsace, Germany and finally Austria, where I found myself in Kitzbühel, mainly translating. By October 1945 all foreigners were discharged.”¹²

Lucien Wolfgang was another La Hille teenager who became an allied soldier at age eighteen. He had fled on foot across the Pyrénées in 1942 and arrived in Casablanca with 1,000 other refugees from France. He volunteered for the Free French Army that landed in southern France jointly with the American forces in September 1944. As a tank driver in the 5th French Armored Division, he participated in the liberation of numerous cities, including Marseille, Avignon, Lyon, Belfort, Colmar, Stuttgart, Singen, and, finally Sigmaringen in the Alpine foothills. After the German defeat he was part of the French military government in Vienna, where he was reunited with his mother.¹³

Edgar Chaim had worked on farms near La Hille even before the August 1942 arrests and continued that activity after he and the other thirty-nine teenagers were freed from Le Vernet. In January 1945 he joined the French 11th Infantry regiment and, after training near Dijon, was assigned to the 4th Moroccan Division. When the Germans surrendered in May 1945, his unit had advanced to Bregenz on Lake Constance. Until 1947 he served with the French occupation forces in the Austrian cities of Bregenz and Innsbruck. During a furlough in France he was able to bring La Hille friend Cilly Stückler back to Vienna to reunite her with her mother. Chaim returned to France when he was discharged in February 1947.¹⁴

Still named Werner Rindsberg, I was able to emigrate from La Hille to New York in the summer of 1941, was drafted into the US Army at age nineteen in 1943, became a US citizen that year and changed my name to Walter Reed. I was shipped to England in early 1944 and landed at Utah Beach one week after the Normandy invasion.

Later I was transferred, as a German prisoner interrogator, to the 95th Infantry Division, which advanced from Metz, France, to Belgium and Germany. After the German defeat I served as a counter-intelligence agent with the US military government, assigned to help with the denazification of local governments and the faculty of Marburg University. I served in the US Army for three years and became a staff sergeant.

Three other La Hille teenagers distinguished themselves in the dangerous activities of the resistance, foremost among them Ruth Schütz (Usrad). The others so engaged were Heinz (Chaim) Storosum and Peter Landesmann, who received high commendations for his actions after the German defeat.

The ranks of the La Hille colony heroes include all of the teenagers (and three adults) who made their way across the closely guarded borders of Switzerland and Spain under the most trying circumstances, risking their lives and their safety in order to seize the alternative to an even worse outcome—probable shipment to the gas chambers in Poland.

Those who escaped to Switzerland include: Almuth Königshöfer, Lotte Nussbaum, Peter Salz, Regina Rosenblatt, Margot Kern, Jacques Roth, Hans Garfunkel, Leo Lewin, Else Rosenblatt, Ruth Klonower, Ilse Wulff, Betty Schütz, Addi Nussbaum, Edith Moser, Manfred Kamlet, Edith Goldapper, Inge Schragenheim, Inge Joseph, Inge Bernhard, Toni Rosenblatt, Walter Kamlet, and Mme Flora Schlesinger and her son Paul.

Those who crossed the Pyrénées into Spain include: Lucien Wolfgang, Norbert Stückler, Alex and Elka Frank, Inge Berlin, Ruth Schütz, Ilse Brünell, Heinz Storosum, Eva Fernanbuk, Edith Jankielewicz, Gustave and Fred Manasse, and Peter Bergmann.

Except for the eleven boys and girls and Ernst Schlesinger who were caught, deported and murdered, all of the other original members of the colony succeeded in hiding and surviving either at La Hille or in different sections of Vichy France. Among these were Friedl Steinberg, Ruth Herz, Henri Brunell, Rita Leistner, Lixie Grabkowicz, Cilly Stückler, Gerti Lind, Georges Herz, Gerard Kwaczkowski, Frieda Rosenfeld, Gertrude Dessauer, Fanny and Rita Kuhlberg, Henri Vos, and Leo and Willy Grossmann.

One would expect that the liberation of the Ariège was cause for celebration. Unfortunately the final stage of the Château de La Hille was marred by tragedy. The successor of Emma Ott, a Mr. Claude, was using the Croix Rouge (Swiss Red Cross) truck to transport supplies from Pamiers to La Hille and had taken some of the children with him. Apparently overloaded, the old vehicle overturned in the village and Mr. Claude and Jaime Palau, the Spanish refugee and father of several of the La Hille children, were killed.

That all but twelve of the La Hille children and staff were able to escape the persecution by the Nazis and the Vichy French government is probably unique in the annals of the Holocaust. This outcome required true heroism among the rescuers and supporters, as well as among the girls and boys of La Hille themselves.