Born August 16, 1930, Berchem, Belgium
Died February 25, 2009
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I have a photograph of a garden I look at often and longingly. The photo shows several family members sitting and standing around a small garden waterfall, topped by a sculpture of a little girl holding an umbrella. The year was 1938.
The individuals depicted in the photograph were tante Leah, mama’s youngest sister; her husband, Alex; his brother, Adolf; and his wife Estera; their sister Chany, with her husband Mendel at her side. Chany was pregnant with her second child. Two children fit in the foreground on the stone edge of the waterfall. One of the children, the girl, is the writer, and the other is Jackie, the brother of, at the time, as yet unborn child.
The only one of the individuals depicted in the garden of this photograph who remained alive after the Shoah, is me. Neither Jackie, a cousin whom I loved and admired, he was four years older than I, nor any of the other family members made it ... none, with the exception of the unborn child, Henry, who was born a few months after the gathering in the garden. Henry, or Harreke, as we called him, survived the war. I often imagine him in the photo, invisible, hiding within his mother’s body, as he did later, at the tender age of four, when he was sheltered and hidden from the Nazis in a monastery by the Benedictine monk, Father Bruno Reynders.
Months after the liberation from the German occupation by the Allies, I learned from Father Bruno, who had also hidden my sisters and me, where Harreke was located. I contacted the Abbot at the monastery where Harreke was still housed because his parents had not returned from the concentration camps. Through Father Bruno’s intervention, I was allowed to visit him, then later was allowed to take him out for weekend visits with me, my sisters, and mama. However, I had to return him to the monastery by Sunday evening. This became an excruciating ordeal. Every Sunday, upon our return to the monastery, Harreke, now almost seven years old, was distressed -- he cried, he screamed, “Flora, don’t leave me, please, Flora, I don’t want to stay here, I want to go home with you ...” My return home without Harreke was always difficult, I could not understand why we could not keep him with us until his parents and brother returned ... a return which unfortunately never materialized.
I asked mama why we could not keep Harreke with us, being no one was coming back from the camps. She said it was against the law because he was our cousin by marriage and was not related to us by blood. “Mama, we can hide him, after all, we were hidden and no one found us ... I’ll find a good hiding place for him in case the gendarmes come looking for him -- he’ll be safe.” “You don’t understand, mamele, things are different now. The Gestapo are gone and now we must do things according to the Law. Now we must obey all the laws.”
I was not happy about that because Harreke had become very attached to me, the big adult of fifteen years of age. I began to dread the weekly returns of Harreke to the monastery. The repeated screaming and crying. “Flora, Flora don’t leave me...” left me with incredible feelings of guilt. There must be a way ... but there was no way. At the time, Jewish children who were sheltered from the Nazis in religious or secular institutions, or by individual families, were legally retained in their custody until their biological parents who had entrusted them to those institutions, or families, returned to claim them.
The days, the weeks, and the months passed. While waiting for family members’ return, not having heard of, or grasped as yet the enormity of the massacre of our fellow Jews, we tried to settle into a semblance of a normal life. Mama went to the Joint Distribution Committee, which had opened an office in Brussels, and after they had helped us with a few basic pieces of secondhand furniture, they managed to find a sewing machine for mama, with which we were able to start earning a few francs to feed ourselves. I say “we” because we all helped with the work, my two sisters, after classes at the local elementary school, the same one we had attended for a short while before going into complete hiding, and I full time, together with mama.
In May of 1946, we were scheduled to leave Brussels for the United States of America ... as guests of the U.S. Army ... but without Harreke. We appealed to the U.S. Army Commander at the Military Headquarters in Brussels. We begged him to allow us to take Harreke with us. His reply was sad, but simple, “Madame Mendelovics, Henry is not yours or your husband’s child ... according to regulations, I cannot let him immigrate with you. Later, if you wish you can obtain custody, according to Belgian law, if his parents do not return, you can apply for a visa for the child ...”
©2002, Flora Singer (Mendelowicz). The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
By 1941, Jewish people in Belgium no longer received food ration stamps. The only way to obtain food was to buy it on the black market. Mama started to smuggle food across the border from northern France, where food was still more easily obtained and less expensive. Part of the food Mama bought was sold and some of it kept for the four of us—Mama, my two younger sisters, and me. Also, with the proceeds, we were able to buy perishables like milk and eggs, as well as some vegetables and fruit. During Mama’s trips, I stayed home to care for my two younger sisters, Charlotte and Betty, which was quite a responsibility for one not quite 11 years old.
Occasionally, when one of our neighbors, Magda, a single woman, was able to watch my two sisters, I would miss school and accompany Mama to France and help with the smuggling. According to Mama, children were not as easily suspected, or as carefully scrutinized, as were adults. Also, having me along enabled her to bring back more merchandise than when she went alone. When there was no school, I accompanied Mama more often while Magda, who looked forward to receiving her payment in food from Mama, would watch my younger sisters.
We usually took the train to the last stop before the Belgian-French border where we had to cross into France. We left the train on the Belgian side and stayed there until night fell. As soon as it was dark, we crossed the border into France; we usually chose a part of the border that was not heavily guarded on the Belgian side. Once on the French side, we rested behind some bushes and waited for daylight. After the sun made its appearance, we walked nonchalantly to the nearest bus stop and boarded the bus to the center of the city of Lille.
As soon as we arrived in Lille, we made our way to a small café where we were acquainted with the owner, Josef. Here we were able to meet some local people who sold food supplies. Also, Josef had a few rooms available where travelers could spend the night for a modest fee. On this particular trip, we bought five kilos of sugar, planning to sell four and a half and keep the remaining half for our personal use. I had also taken along an empty box which had held the new doll Mama had bought me just prior to the German invasion of Belgium. We filled this box with the sugar. Mama also bought a few meters of wool fabric, which she wrapped around her body under her clothes. We were ready for our return trip home.
Most of the time we were able to obtain the help of a kind German soldier—after Mama explained that her husband, a Belgian soldier, was a prisoner of war and she was the sole caretaker of her three children—to take our groceries across the border (soldiers’ luggage was not checked). However, this time we were unable to find anyone to help us, so we had to risk crossing the border and pass customs ourselves.
As we were attempting to go through the open gate of the border, a customs agent approached us. I was the one carrying the box of sugar. Mama was carrying a bag filled with several breads, which were promptly confiscated. But the breads were a ploy. After they took them away from Mama, they did not search her any further. The customs agent turned to me and his hands reached for the doll’s box. I started to scream: “Mama, Mama, the man wants to take away my box! He wants to take my doll!” I held the box close to my chest, trying to turn away from the customs agent just as he was reaching for the box. “Mama, don’t let him take my doll, he’ll break it, he’ll break my new doll!” He tried again, being surprisingly gentle. “I only want to look at her, little one,” he said. “I won’t hurt her, I promise.” I did not cease screaming until he finally said, in a voice that sounded more tired than annoyed, “Okay, okay. Don’t be afraid. Keep your doll, I won’t touch it.” And with that, he waved us on.
©2006, Flora Singer (Mendelowicz). The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
My husband Jackie and I were invited for a reunion of his former Seward Park High School friends from New York City. These were the young people with whom Jackie had grown up. They and their families had lived and some still were living in the neighborhood where Jackie was born, played, and attended both secular and religious school. I had met some of them after Jackie and I became engaged to be married. Jackie had also invited a few of them to our wedding. After that, Jackie and I moved away from his old neighborhood to settle in a suburb of New York. Since Jackie was a member of the United States Armed Forces at the time we got married, he had to return soon to his base, while I stayed at home in Flushing.
I commuted to work on a daily basis by bus and subway, from Flushing in Queens where we occupied a small street-level, basement apartment in my parent’s home to downtown New York City where I worked at M. Lowenstein & Sons, Inc. as a bilingual secretary. Whenever Jackie could, he would come home to spend the weekend with me and then return to his base. On the surface, I lived the American dream, except for one thing. I worked and interacted with my fellow employees, but our conversations were mostly work related. When I was free, my time was spent with Jackie when he was home and with members of my family, mostly my parents. My sisters, who were younger than me, attended school and had already made friends with whom they spent much of their free time.
At the reunion, which took place in the home of one of Jackie’s former schoolmates, people mingled, nibbled on snacks, and talked. Most of their talking revolved around reminiscences of their early youth, the games they played on the street in front of their apartment houses on the Lower East Side of New York City, their sleepovers at each other’s homes, their activities and outings from their Cub and Boy Scout days, and their years at Seward Park High School. They also talked about their graduation from high school, the prom, and so forth. I listened and smiled occasionally, as required by good manners. However, I had nothing to contribute to their conversation. I felt like a stranger, an intruder. Even Jackie, my husband, standing at my side, who was actively engaged in the conversation with his friends and laughing heartily when warranted, did not realize that although I stood with him, I did not feel a part of the group or their life.
As I stood listening, one of Jackie’s friends turned to me and said, “Flora, with whom did you attend the prom? Did you go with Jackie? I do not remember.” I did not know what to reply. I hesitated, then finally I said, “Uh, no...well...I did not go to the...a...prom. I did not even attend any high school....” “What do you mean, you did not...?” “Well you see....” As I began trying to explain why I had not attended any high school, the young person had already turned away from me and became actively engaged in a conversation with the others in the group, and I...I was lost...I suddenly felt more acutely than I had prior to the reunion that I did not belong here, that I was a stranger, an outsider.
It was a strange and lonely feeling. These were my husband’s friends, the people he had grown up with, and with whom he shared so many experiences and memories. I was not a part of this world. At this point I realized that not even Jackie and I, although married, had ever talked about anything which did not relate to “today,” his world, his friends, who now supposedly were also my friends. I also realized that they did not know me and neither did Jackie. I mean really know me, the me who was not the person I portrayed.
I concentrated and tried so hard to quickly become the perfect American. I concentrated on learning the English language. I did not attend regular school because I had to work. As I continued to politely listen and smile when required, I was drawn back into my own world, the world about which no one ever asked me—the World War II world of the Shoah, which I survived and which shaped me.
©2011, Flora Singer (Mendelowicz). The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
In May 1995, my husband Jack and I traveled to Brussels, Belgium, on a mission to attend a ceremony to be held at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. I was very excited. At the ceremony during that month, Yad Vashem, the memorial in Jerusalem for the Jews and others murdered during the frightful years of World War II and the Holocaust, was going to honor several “Just of the Nations,” the term for those who dared to risk their lives to save others condemned to death by the Nazis.
We arrived in Brussels, checked into our hotel, unpacked our luggage, and made a few telephone calls to tell those of my rescuers invited to the ceremony that we had arrived and were looking forward to seeing them at the Université Libre de Bruxelles the next day.
I was happy because I would see some of the nuns who cared for my sisters and me during the time we had to hide from the Gestapo for the crime of having been born Jewish. But I was also sad, because some were being honored posthumously. Three of those wonderful people, to whom my sisters Charlotte and Betty and I owed our lives, had already died. They were Sister Odonia, a Franciscan nun; the Reverend Mother M. Chrysostome, of the convent of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows; and George Ranson, a member of the Belgian Resistance, who had sheltered me and had made false documents for my mother.
Two nuns, Sister Marie Consolata and Sister Jeanne-Marie, would accept the certificate and medal offered to the Reverend Mother. Sister Roberta of the Franciscan Order could not attend to receive the award, either for Sister Odonia or for herself, due to her age, 93 at the time. The daughter of George Ranson could not attend the ceremony either, but my husband and I, having received the certificate and medal for him, made arrangements to meet his daughter, Georgette Pierseaux-Ranson, for breakfast the following day to offer these gifts to her.
As for Sister Roberta of the Franciscan Order, the Secretary of the Embassy of Israel, Zvi Tal, agreed to accompany my husband Jack and me the following morning to the Franciscan convent for elderly nuns in Vinderhoute. Immediately after our breakfast with George Ranson’s daughter, at precisely 10 a.m., we met the car from the embassy and Zvi Tal in front of the hotel for the trek to Vinderhoute.
When we arrived at the convent, we rang the bell. A nun opened the door, led us into a parlor where guests were received, and went to fetch Sister Roberta. Within minutes, Sister Roberta entered the parlor bearing a wide smile, which illuminated her wrinkled face. We embraced each other, our eyes filled with tears of joy at seeing each other again. I then introduced her to my husband as well as to Zvi Tal and his assistant. The room was decorated, and tables set with lace tablecloths and vases filled with flowers had been prepared for a festive luncheon. Several important local guests, the mayor and priest of the town, and several other luminaries and guests had been invited to the convent for the anticipated ceremony.
Everyone, after greeting each other, sat down in anticipation of the ceremony. Zvi Tal said a few words about the reason we were there on that particular day. He spoke about Yad Vashem and about the reasons for which we had come to Vinderhoute. He described the award to be offered to Sister Roberta and also talked about Sister Odonia, whose award was presented posthumously. Then I spoke, describing how these wonderful nuns had sheltered us to keep us from being found and slaughtered by the Nazis. I was very emotional.
After the presentation of the certificate and medal to Sister Roberta, luncheon was served. I sat between Sister Roberta and a journalist from the local newspaper Het Volk (The People). The journalist interviewed me while we were eating. Suddenly, as we were talking, Sister Roberta turned to me, wagged her forefinger at me, and said: “Just like when you were a little girl; talk, talk, talk.... You have not changed at all. You still talk, talk, talk....” At that, I replied, “But Sister Roberta, I am telling him about you and Sister Odonia. I’m telling him how wonderful you were, how you hid us...”
“He can wait. First you eat, and then you’ll talk.... Eat!” So, I obeyed—I forgot for a moment that I was an adult, a married grandmother, and a professional—and ate, first looking at the journalist while making a face and thus quietly indicating that I would speak with him again after we were finished eating.
The time came for us to part. While the others were waiting for me in the car in front of the convent, I said goodbye and hugged Sister Roberta, who held me tightly against her. Even when I was already in the car, she and I were still waving to each other. I kept looking out the window to see her standing at the gate, waving until we were out of each other’s sight. I never saw Sister Roberta again. She died shortly after this visit. I am at peace because while she was still alive, she was recognized and honored for her heroism.
©2011, Flora Singer (Mendelowicz). The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
Upon our arrival in New York we were met at the harbor by two men. I vaguely recognized one of the men, but the other was a total stranger. After being introduced, I learned that the one I vaguely recog- nized was my father. Although I recognized his face, something was wrong. I remembered my father as a very tall and strong man. This man was short—I later learned that in American measurements, he was only five feet, six inches tall. He also had a slightly protruding abdomen. The other man, six feet tall, was the uncle we had never met. He was married to my father’s sister, Sadie, whom we had never met either. What I didn’t realize at that time, was that eight and one-half years is a long time in anyone’s life, but more so in the life of a growing child. When father left Belgium, I was not quite eight years old, and now, when I descended from the steamship Santa Paula in the harbor of New York, I was a young woman two months shy of 16.
We were hugged by both men. I stiffened. I felt uncomfortable being embraced by strange males. Somehow at that time I had difficulty distinguishing between males who were strangers and those who were family members. Mama’s constant drilling to never allow anyone to touch us, especially a male, reinforced during our stays in several convents, had its effect. We were incredibly well trained. Mama was embraced and kissed by father whom we used to call “Papa” before the war. But now we called him the “man.” It was difficult for us to say “Papa.” We stood shyly by, while the adults exchanged a few words, before picking up our meager luggage and heading toward a car, a Cadillac, I learned later. I also learned that it was a prestigious car to own. The car belonged to our uncle. We sank into the comfortable seats, and as we headed toward the borough of Queens, we took in the awesome sights of New York, the skyline with the tall skyscrapers, the building we later learned was the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and the streets filled with crowds of people and traffic. It was dizzying. It was exhilarating.
Simultaneously, however, what struck me and disappointed me during this first car ride through the city of New York, was the garbage, which I had already noticed as we walked from the harbor to the car. Also the graffiti on buildings and walls. I had dreamed of this arrival, but in my dreams I never saw garbage, I never saw dirt, I never saw graffiti. As the car exited the city and entered the borough of Queens, there were fewer tall buildings and the crowds and traffic thinned out, while the landscape and the streets we passed looked greener and calmer. After a while, the car turned into a street lined with elegant homes, then pulled up to stately brick house, with a meticulously landscaped garden facing the street, and surrounded by beautiful old trees. The front door opened and Aunt Sadie, Papa’s sister, came out to greet us, the new immigrants from Europe. Our luggage was taken into the house. We shyly made the acquain- tance of our two cousins, Aunt Sadie and Uncle Isidore’s daughters, who were slightly younger than I.
Soon thereafter we were seated at a table in the dining room, laden with delicious American food. Although our eyes widened in anticipation, we tried to act nonchalant. We had strict orders from Mama, and we were trained by her never to appear hungry, even when we were. We were taught to turn down one food and accept another, and to eat very slowly, lest someone would think that we were hungry. We were also taught that when offered a second helping we were to, at first, turn it down. Then, while appearing reluctant, accept some, which was of course what we wanted to do in the first place.
Papa spoke very little at the table. Most of the table conversation was between Isidore, whom we learned to call Uncle Izzy, and Mama. Aunt Sadie occasionally chimed in, asking a question or two, but on the whole the meal passed rather quietly. Rhoda and Harriet looked at us, examined us, but no conversation was possible because, although we, the new cousins, spoke more than one language, we spoke no English, the only language they knew. I knew a few sentences in English. Prior to our departure from Brussels, Mama had hired an English-language tutor. She contracted for only five one-hour sessions, which was all we could afford, and I was the pupil. We needed one person to be able to ask a few necessary questions on our voyage like, “Where can we find...? Which way to...?” and so forth. These were not sufficient for a social conversation. Mama and the three of us were able to speak with Papa, Uncle Izzy, and Aunt Sadie, since we spoke Yiddish, the language spoken by most Europeans of the Jewish faith. But the adults were busy talking to each other and not to us children.
I remember looking at Papa at the table. Was this quiet man the Papa I remember...the man who used to laugh heartily while playing with us when we were little. I learned many years later that Papa, when faced with the four females coming toward him at the harbor, was totally overwhelmed. He had left a woman with three little ones, and now he was faced with this “new” family, after having lived as a single individual, a bachelor, responsible for no one but himself for so many years. For him, I realized much later as I matured, this must have been a very difficult adjustment. Not only were we new immigrants to America who had to adjust to a new culture and life, but we had also just lived through the difficult experiences of a war. In addition to the experiences of a war, as members of the Jewish faith, we were also pursued and had to hide, both our identity and physically, to avoid being caught by the Gestapo. Besides this new family that faced Papa, he was also readjusting to life as a civilian, for he had recently been discharged from the United States Army, which he had joined voluntarily and in which he had served honorably.
The sun went down, evening fell, and everyone began to feel the effects of this exciting day, especially the new arrivals. We were assigned a bedroom, which we expected to share with Mama, as we had in Brussels and on the ship.
However, she was not going to spend the night with us children. This caught us by surprise. Aunt Sadie led the three of us to the room in which we would sleep, and then we watched as Mama, after kissing us goodnight, entered another room with Papa. We waited for her to emerge, but she didn’t, and we spent a long time wondering how she would prepare for bed with the “man” in the room. We were not used to having a man with us at bedtime.
©2011, Flora Singer (Mendelowicz). The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
Every time Helena, or Heleneke, as she was called by everyone in the family, wore her light blue ensemble, I was filled with envy. I loved the dress and the cape she wore over it. My favorite part of the dress was the skirt, which fluttered up and outward when Heleneke twirled round and round. When she wore the cape she looked regal, like a real princess. Heleneke had many beautiful dresses; I did not.
Heleneke’s mom, Aunt Rachel, made many of her dresses. Heleneke was the only daughter in her family. The other child was an older boy, Louis. In our family, we were three daughters, thus Mama did not have the time to make us many dresses, especially not dresses with matching capes. But I was hopeful. I knew that one day I would own that beautiful ensemble, the dress and the cape. I received all of Heleneke’s dresses and coats when she outgrew them. Although she was only eight days older than I, she was taller than me.
When we played together, I often asked Heleneke if I could try on her light blue dress and cape. I put on the dress and twirled round and round in front of the mirror in her room, watching the skirt flutter around me. Then I put the cape on over my shoulders and glanced at myself, feeling especially beautiful. After a while I reluctantly took the ensemble off and put my own clothes on to go home, but the thought was always there. The ensemble will be mine. I wished that Heleneke would grow a little faster. I was impatient.
I loved Heleneke. She and her family lived close by on the Lange Kievitstraat, where we lived. On Sundays, when all the family members met in the Antwerp Stadtpark to picnic and play, Heleneke and I, as well as her brother and my younger sisters, ran and played together, or watched the graceful swans in the park lake. Then, when Uncle Alex, Aunt Lea’s husband, took out his mandolin and began to play, we joined the other family members to sing together.
Time passed. On May 10, 1940, the German army with its tanks entered Belgium and the horrible years of World War II began. The persecution of the Jewish people started. We all dispersed in different directions, changing our identities, hiding from the enemy, the Gestapo. We lost contact. I lost contact not only with Heleneke, but also with many members of our large family.
After the Liberation by the Allied troops, we waited for the return of family members, either from the many hiding places, or from the concentration camps. Most never returned. Heleneke’s father Moisz, who was caught and taken to Auschwitz with Transport XV, on October 24, 1942, never returned. Her mother, Rachel, and her brother, Louis, were caught and taken to Auschwitz with Transport XIX, on January 15, 1943; they never returned. Heleneke, beautiful Heleneke, was also caught by the Gestapo and taken to Auschwitz with Transport XIX. She never returned from Auschwitz either. Just like the other members of the family, she perished in Auschwitz’s gas chamber.
I was never caught. I managed to elude the Gestapo and survived. I inherited Heleneke’s beautiful light blue ensemble but have never worn it. It is featured in a photograph of my beautiful family member and best friend, Heleneke, wearing it, the cape draped over her slim shoulders. I often look at that photograph and cry. And I ask. Why?
©2011, Flora Singer (Mendelowicz). The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
