With false French papers, Rose-Helene Spreiregen, age 12, and her grandmother fled German-occupied Paris on an overnight train. “Make believe you are sleeping. I will take care of it,” Rose-Helene told her grandmother, who was a Polish Jewish immigrant and spoke little French. “If she opened her mouth, we were sure to be arrested.” On the journey both German and French officials checked their papers. Only after Rose-Helene and her grandmother arrived at their destination could the little girl give way to her emotions. “I was shaking for hours that this could have been the end of us.”
Biographical Information
Rose-Helene Spreiregen was born Rose-Helene Bester on March 6, 1931 in Paris, France. Rose-Helene was raised by her mother, Rivka Bester, and her grandmother, Sarah Bester. Both had immigrated to France from Warsaw, Poland in the late 1920s. Due to family hardships, five-year-old Rose-Helene was sent to live in a Jewish boarding house where she attended public school nearby. During her brief visits home, Rose-Helene often overheard her mother talking about the imminent war with Germany. Shortly before World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Rose-Helene returned home to Paris.
Rose-Helene's grandmother (left) and mother (right) in Warsaw, Poland, before immigrating to Paris in the 1920s. —Courtesy of Rose-Helene Spreiregen
Fearing gas attacks from the Germans, children and the elderly evacuated to the countryside; among them, Rose-Helene, Sarah, and Rose-Helene’s cousin, Bernard. The family found refuge in Savigny-sur-Braye where Rose-Helene and Bernard attended school.
In May 1940, Germany invaded France. As the German army approached Paris, hundreds of thousands of people fled to the countryside. Sarah gave the refugees passing through Savigny-sur-Braye what food and water she could spare. When Rivka came to visit, she was wounded in the foot during a bombing. She returned to Paris to seek medical treatment, taking Rose-Helene with her. Her grandmother and cousin later followed.
After the invasion, France was divided into two main zones: the north and Atlantic coast of France occupied by the Germans, including Paris; and the south of France which was unoccupied. A new collaborationist government known as Vichy France governed the country. Both the German occupiers and the government of Vichy France issued restrictions on Jews. In October 1940, Vichy France instituted antisemitic legislation, defining Jews by race. In June 1942, the Germans and their French collaborators began carrying out the systematic roundups and deportations of Jews from France to killing centers in German-occupied Poland, mostly to Auschwitz-Birkenau. That same month, Jews in the occupied zone of France were required to wear a yellow Star of David on their garments. It became unsafe for Rose-Helene to attend school, as Jewish children were being arrested while in class and deported with their families.
In July 1942, a local Parisian police officer informed Rivka about an impending roundup of Jews (the so-called Vél d'Hiv roundup). Rivka hid, obtained false identification papers, and then fled to unoccupied southern France after warning her family. She was arrested at the demarcation line between the occupied and unoccupied zone and sent to Drancy transit camp. At Drancy, Rivka volunteered to accompany a deportation transport of children whose parents had already been deported. The transport left for Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center on August 18, 1942. Almost all those on board were gassed upon arrival.
Following her mother’s arrest, Rose-Helene and Sarah moved into Rivka’s now vacant apartment in Paris. For an entire year, Sarah rarely left the apartment for fear of arrest and deportation, which required Rose-Helene to assume many adult responsibilities. Neighbors, Paul and Yvonne Martin, sometimes helped them hide in their laundromat to avoid roundups. In August 1943, after hearing rumors of yet another round-up, Sarah decided they needed to leave Paris. Using forged identification papers, Sarah and Rose-Helene fled Paris and found refuge in the village of Voiron in southern France. At the age of 12, Rose-Helene found work managing a small grocery store. Sarah bartered with the local residents for goods, and Rose-Helene supplemented their rations by collecting fallen chestnuts and gathering branches for fuel.
In August 1944, the Allies liberated Voiron. Sarah wanted to return to Paris immediately, but due to transportation shortages, the two were unable to return until November. In her absence, Sarah’s apartment had been looted and rented to others, despite the fact her rent was being paid the entire time she was away. Sarah had left money with Paul and Yvonne Martin to pay rent when it was due. After a year of contention with the French courts, she was able to reoccupy her apartment. By age sixteen, Rose-Helene was living alone in Rivka’s apartment, anxiously awaiting her mother’s return. Rivka never returned. She had probably been murdered in the gas chambers upon her arrival at Auschwitz.
Rose-Helene enrolled in school, graduated, and obtained a job in a French banking and investment firm, where she became an expert in gold coin authentication. In 1961, Rose-Helene married an American, Paul Spreiregen, and together, they moved to the Washington, D.C. area. She is a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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