RelatioNet Project
Holocaust Survivor's Project
Edith Monique
Presented By: Amit Bandiel
Paris
Before the war:
In the years before the war, the name of Alfred Dreyfus got cleared and the French society and the establishment recognized the injustice inflicted upon the Jews and started immigrating Jews from Eastern Europe who sought to escape the hardships there.
After World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, large waves of Jewish immigrants from the Mediterranean Basin came to France.
Another wave of immigrants arrived from Europe after Hitler's rise to power in 1933.
In the period prior to World War II, Paris won fame thanks to the communities of culture and art, and thanks to its nightlife.
During the war:
During World War II, the number of Jewish people in France was about a quarter of a million, when the original Jews of France are a minority. The main concentration was in Paris. Jewish people were participating in all daily matters of the country. France was the very first country in the modern times to be led by a Jewish prime minister.
About 5 weeks after the beginning of the Nazi Germany invasion into France, the partially evacuated Paris was conquered by the German armed forces.
After the war:
France was occupied by the Germans in May 1940 and was divided into two parts: the North West under the German occupation and the South East region as a "sovereign" - Vichy France, an ally of the Germans.
In May 1941, the German authorities started ruling France, with the assistance of local police, they mass arrested Jews and took their property.
In November 1942, the Germans invaded France, and began arresting Jews in these areas. Drancy internment camp near Paris served as concentration and transit station, until the transfer of the Jews to death camps in the East.
Edith's story:
My name is Edith Monique Saias.
I was adopted by the Miltersen family in Denmark, then moved to Israel and was adopted for the 2nd time by my mother's family, who had moved to Israel before the war.
My father, Issac Saias, was born in Yugoslavia and my mother Luna Saias was born in Greece, where they met. They got married and despite what my mother's family said- that they should live in Israel- they decided to move to Paris, where I was born.
After a period of time, world war II had begun.
My father was a proud man, and since they moved to a new country he wanted to prove himself, so he had joined the French Foreign Legion.
The Legion was very active during the war, nevertheless French didn’t really respect the legionnaires because they were once known as Jews too, so they sent them to concentration, then death camps.
One time, my father went to the police to ask why they had taken my mother one night. He complained as a soldier who serves in the army, and they answered "Not. the first thing you are is a Jew".
They took him to the concentration camp in Drancy, where in September he was taken on a train to Auschwitz.
During the war, my mother became friends with another woman whose husband was also at the Foreign Legion, and they had a baby too. My father and this woman's husband became friends too. My mother used to visit this woman almost every afternoon during the war and brought me with her. The woman had a boy that was a little older than I. I guess we used to play together, I don’t remember- I was very young.
My brother used to study until 4 o'clock, so he didn’t come with us to visit this woman.
On one of our visits, I didn’t feel too well, and I fell asleep. My mother used to take the metro to get back home, and her friend told her that she could leave me at their house overnight, so that she wouldn’t have to wake me up.
That night the Gestapo invaded the 11th arrondissement, knocked on the doors, and captured every Jew they found. They took them to Drancy, and then to Auschwitz. But I was not taken. I stayed at my mother's friend's house.
Her name was Mrs. Skalony.
The day after, she heard about the Gestapo's invading on the news and understood that my mother was taken. She took care of me as her husband and she tried to figure what to do with me: I did not belong with the family and they had to escape. They were living very close to the 11th arrondissement and knew that it is a matter of days before the Gestapo would invade their hometown and take them too.
They decided to look for a place to live for a while. I was 1.5 years old,so they put me in a monastery and explained the situation to the priest.
After a while, the Gestapo started looking for Jewish kids in monasteries.
They moved me to a children's house that was not very far from Paris yet wasn’t touched,
the Nazis hadn’t reached it.
Edith's parents
Edith at the age of 1.5 years
ן don’t have any memories of a kid playing in a kindergarten; I don’t even remember the
teacher. I don’t remember birthdays with candles. I don’t remember childhood events.
Fortunately, I was not in a camp, but was hidden in a home, I don’t have camp horrors to tell. I was very skinny and sick, I used to cough a lot and when I arrived in Israel in 1950,at the port I coughed. We were immediately told that there might be a group of kids sick with Tuberculosis and so we were all sent l for medical checkups. Then I was taken to a children's house in Haifa, where all the children brought by ships were taken.
The war ended in 1945. My father had a sister who was hiding in the free district and she
looked for me. She knew I was somewhere but she didn't know where…
First, she looked for that lady, my mother's friend. She got to her and asked her if she remembered where she had left me. She answered that she left me with a priest at first, who then transferred me to the children's house which could have passed me forward.
My aunt looked for me and found me and of course she took me because I was her brother's daughter. She knew that I was probably the only living family member left. She found out that my parents had indeed died in Auschwitz.
At the night of the invasion, my mother took only my brother and said that she only had one
child, my brother.
Edith with her mother and brother Edith's brother
Oro took me, it was the end of the war and things in Paris were tough.
The city was bombed a lot and there were a few special things that happened. The Germans came and many were taken away in trains to all different places, some were killed some weren't. Now I live at my aunt Oro and she needs to lead herself a way suitable for a child.
Edith's aunt, Oro
The war was over and I was six. My aunt knew that my mother's parents lived in Israel. So she contacted someone in Paris who helped her contact Palestine (Israel) and she sent a letter to my grandparents saying that it was very hard to raise a child in a city like Paris. She asked for help. She lived with the man who wasn't so sympathetic towards me, yet we still had to live with him. He had a wooden leg which he would take off in the evening and hang up. I was always scared that he would hit me with it. It never happened, but I always thought that maybe someday I would do something bad and he would hit me. I once mentioned this to my aunt and she decided to send another letter to my grandparents ,so that I could go live with them. But in the meantime she tried other things, such as enrolling me to school until four o'clock. She also approached different organizations that helped orphans. She approached one which was connected to the Denmark government. Denmark and Paris were wedded. The Danish princess was married to the prince of France.
The connection existed for some decades in the royal Danish family.
In 1947, two years after the war, the Danish decided to invite a few children to come to Denmark for vacation, food, rehabilitation and so it was.
One day, I found myself on a train heading to Denmark. My aunt told me that I was on a train leading to freedom. I had something else on my mind. All the kids knew that the trains went to one place - Auschwitz. The whole way there was silence, no one made a sound, because we were scared that we had been lied to and that the train was heading towards someplace else.
Finally, after three days we arrived in Denmark. But we didn't know it was Denmark, how would a seven year old know what Denmark looked like. We got off to the platform and in front of us were families waiting to take us. But we didn't know that they were happy loving families, so the children got scared, I remember that panic... Kids running on the platform trying to escape... But there were smart people standing at the ends of the platform with bowls filled with chocolate and good things. Then we realized that maybe this was Denmark and not Auschwitz as we had thought... We stood there and waited for families to choose a child that looked nice to them. They had a choice.
I was taken by a Catholic family - the Miltersen family. I think that that was one of my biggest successes. To this day, we are still in touch. They saw my children and grandchildren and we've continued seeing each other throughout the years.
The first contact was extraordinary. We got to the farm and for me it was my first real vacation - I played with the pigs, saw cows and rode a horse. I ate good and healthy food and really liked their pudding. Three months later, I returned to Paris and they had the full right to take me back the next year if they paid for my train ride and so they did... I went to them from 1947 until 1951. Five years. On my last visit , I was there for a whole year. They asked me if I wanted to stay and study there for a whole year, a school year.
the Danish farm the Danish girl (on the left) and Edith (on the right)
the Danish family (brothers and sister)
I was there and I learned in a mission and acted as a complete Catholic. (And when I came
to Israel I found it hard to learn what it meant to be Jewish. I knew French and Danish Greetings better than blessings in Hebrew).
No doubt they gave me the strength to continue.
In 1997, the Danish government decided to have a meeting in the Paris embassy for orphans who were still alive, it was after 60 years.
They organized a very nice event and asked if we had any memories or photographs and if so, to send them to them.
I sent a picture of me with the Danes daughter. There was an 8 year difference between us ,she was older than me. I remember she helped me, played with me, sewed with me, and taught me how to embroil beautifully...
They asked me if I would like to say a few words about this family, and of course I agreed.
I arrived at the event and at the same time people from Denmark arrived and we met again.
This is my speech:
I've made a long way to reach this day. I'm here before you today and feel again the weight of all I went through 60 years ago. The memory does not melt nor weaken, and is as clear despite the years. I couldn’t have been at such an event because I felt the need to share the feelings that have submerged deep down for many years. A day does not pass in which I don’t say thank you for being here today alive, for growing up and finding a family. I have been able to raise and educate them in a free country, and for having the opportunity to experience. It is a privilege that many were unable to experience unfortunately, including my parents and my older brother and millions more. You can say for yourselves, Danish people, and especially my adoptive family, I was given the opportunity to feel warmth again because you allowed yourself to give to a little girl who's train could have perhaps arrived at a different known destination. A place not many returned from. But I came to you generous people, to experience with you, eat, and smile. I came to you hungry in body and soul and you soothed me. I had wonderful and unforgettable summers with you that to this day I still remember. They gave me the strength I needed to continue to fight, for the purpose of life.
I stayed with that family for five years and was also a Holocaust survivor- it was another kind of Holocaust, but also a Holocaust. I did not know who I was, I was alone without parents. And with no doubt, these people helped me build myself.
the Danish parents
In 1951, I immigrated to Israel with the Youth Aliyah.
Elite Youth appealed to many families in foreign countries and had asked if they wanted to send their children to Israel.
Looking back, I do not know if I had made the right decision, maybe I should have stayed in Paris.
But I think I acted correctly, Israel is a place where Jews are not called a "dirty Jew".
There is a very beautiful monument in Paris and the names of my mother and father are written there, but my brother's name is not. According to the pictures , he seems older than me, probably in four years. There are lists of a famous French lawyer who documented the names of all the Jews of France who perished in the Holocaust. My parents are documented there as dead but my brother is registered as UNKNOWN.
Of course I also thank my adoptive family in Israel, it's actually my mother's brother.
My story with them is this:
My family's name in Israel is Sides and they adopted me. I came to Israel on a ship named "Galila" in 1951, and I was brought to a children's house in Haifa, from which they were distributed to kibbutzim. I happened to have an uncle, grandfather, and grandmother. And a day or two later, two men arrived at the children's house.
The manager of the orphanage told me" It's your grandfather and uncle", but I did not believe it. I looked at them and thought, "Where did I get a grandfather and uncle?" But I couldn’t say anything because I didn't know Hebrew. I went with these two men, and they took me on the train. When I got home with them, they told me it was Tel Aviv.
I remember writing a letter to my adoptive family in Denmark. I wrote them that there wasn’t food and that it was very hot and they sent me money so I could buy food for me and the family. They are so nice.
As for my lack of faith in my uncle and grandfather, I believed them eventually because of the following story:
I remember when I immigrated to Israel I had a small bag that I brought with me from Paris and there were pictures of my parents and my brother and of me as a baby. I kept the bag always with me. One day I got home and I always went to check that my pictures were under my pillow. They were not there. I thought maybe someone replaced the covers but I didn't know what my aunt did with my bag and I didn't speak Hebrew. I felt audacity to go and ask my aunt where she put it. Three days went by and it was a Friday. My uncle always sat at the head of the table and suddenly I saw next to his plate that he had a case like mine
He opened the case and put pictures on the table and I thought "these are my pictures", but did not say anything. Was I supposed to call him a thief?! He saw me looking and said "Do you know these pictures?" I told him they were mine. He said they were his and I said I had the same pictures so he then went into the room and brought my bag and told me that every time my mother took a picture she sent a copy of it to him. Then I finally believed my uncle.
My mother's brother – my uncle - took me only because he was the only one who knew some French and knowing I'd only knew Latin, Danish, and French, my uncle decided to enroll me to a Christian school in Jaffa. It was a bit far but I walked. I had a very nice time there.
After nearly a year, someone came from the municipality to my uncle and said, "How do you put a girl from the Holocaust in a mission?" My uncle replied, "This is the most appropriate thing you can do, she speaks French and Latin and knows how to pray." Then the man from the municipality told him, "Mr. Sides, You will enroll Edith at Alliance ". My uncle said, "It's a lot of money," the man from the municipality said "the municipality will pay you".
And that's how I came to learn at Alliance school, and managed to be even in Ramat Aviv, but for less than a year because you had to pay a lot of money. I decided that the family invested enough in me. I was old enough so I started to work. My uncle knew important families in Tel Aviv, so he got me a job at the Bank. I worked there for years and earned money and I felt proud. My family helped me until I went to the army.
They were very loving and I had everything I needed.
They contributed to my growth and strength, and to the understanding that life goes on.
