Jeannette Nadle papers

Jeannette Nadle (née Bertman) was born on October 10, 1931 in Brussels, Belgium. She had two older siblings, Marie and Nat. In 1940, after the Germans invaded Belgium, the Bertman family made plans to flee Belgium. On the day of their departure, her mother became ill and the family decided to stay in Belgium. In 1942, the family went into hiding. Jeannette was sent to live with a family of Flemish farmers. Her parents paid for her board. Alerted that the German soldiers would begin rounding up the Jewish children, Jeannette and her siblings joined her parents in the attic in which they were hiding on Boulevard Anspach in Brussels. While in hiding, her parents sewed military uniforms for local police and German soldiers which offset the cost of hiding the family. Her uncle, Marcel, also joined the family hiding in the attic.

To pass the time, her siblings acted as Jeannette’s teachers, instructing her in Latin and algebra. Her brother Nat, listened to the BBC newscast on a radio and they tracked the progress of the war. Jeannette became ill with appendicitis. She received medical care at a private medical clinic. Through the help of the underground, she recovered at the home of Madame Jeanne Rowart, a wealthy woman living in Rebecq, Belgium. Jeannette remained with Madame Rowart for the remainder of the war. While in Rebecq, Jeannete assisted the underground resistance by hiding firearms and burying gasoline drums for their use. In September 1944, she watched the British enter Belgium. Not long afterwards, her brother Nat arrived to take her back to Brussels to join her family. Jeannette and Nat both returned to their schooling. In 1948, the family was able to immigrate to the United States with the assistance and sponsorship of her father’s two sisters who had been living in the United States since 1914. The Bertman family settled in New York City. In New York, her father worked as a cap maker. Her sister worked as an import-export secretary. Her brother worked odd jobs and went to college at night. Jeannette attended high school for a year, and then graduated from Hunter College and later Purdue University. Jeannette eventually married and had two children, Lucette Nadle Kran and Alan Nadle.