Claude Zaidenband papers

Claude Zeidenbach (1941-2014) was born April 6, 1941 in Toulouse to Natan (Nussen) Zaidenbad (painter/decorator) and Mathilde (Mathilda) Herszcovici Zaidenband. Natan Zaidenband was born in March 1899 in Czestochowa, Poland, and Mathilde Herscovici was born September 18, 1899 in Moldova. When Natan was 15, he was drafted to the Polish army for 25 years. He escaped to Vienna, Austria where he became a house painter. After World War I, Natan traveled to Berlin and then to Paris where he had a cousin.
In 1925, Natan married Mathilda in Brussels, Belgium. The couple had four children born in Brussels: Renée (Rebecca, 1927-2002), Henri (Hanoch, 1929-1948), Leon (b. 1931), and Simon (Shimon, b. 1936). Natan continued to work as a house painter, Mathilda stayed home with their children, and the family were conservative Jews. Germany occupied Belgium in May 1940, and the family escaped to Grépiac, France, a small village not far from Toulouse. Claude was born in 1941. Natan was arrested and sent to a work camp in France, escaped after about two months, and joined the Maquis (French resistance). Mathilde and her infant son Claude were sent to live with French artistocrats in a castle in Villemur, France where many women and children refugees and Spanish Republicans were living. They were the only Jews there, and only the head of the refugee department for that area knew that Mathilde and Claude were Jewish. They remained there for two years. Claude’s sister and brothers were sent to Switzerland by the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants). Leon, Simon, and Henri lived with foster families, and Renée at the Centre Henri Dunant, named after the head of the Red Cross in Switzerland. After the war, Natan found Mathilde and Claude in Villemur, and Renée, Leon, Simon, and Henri returned from Swiitzerland to rejoin their family.

Henri immigrated to Palestine in 1946 and died in 1948 during Israel's War of Independence. Claude remained in Brussels until he married at age 27. He and his wife moved to Paris where Claude studied at the Science Politique for two years. He then began to work in the fur trade. Claude moved to Israel in 1986. He is survived by a son who lives in Paris.