Biography
Hermine Markovitz (born Hemine Zali Katz) is the daughter of Samuel Katz and Regina Kahan Katz. She was born on March 15, 1926 in Volovice, Czechoslovakia where her parents ran a general store and also had a small farm. Hermine was the oldest of eight children. When the Nazis took over the Sudentenland in the summer of 1938, Hermine was visiting her aunt and uncle in Antwerp. Rather than return home, Hermine stayed with her family in Belgium for the next year and a half. After the German invasion of Belgium in 1940, her family fled to France. Since Hermine had Czech rather than Belgian papers, she had to go through a different procedure at the border than her aunt and uncle. In the confusion, she became separated from them and was stranded at the train station. After several hours, two other families befriended Hermine and offered to take her with them to Paris. They remained there for only one day and on the heels of the Nazi invasion, Hermine and her protectors made their way to Marseilles in southern France. One family, the Tennebaums, brought her to the OSE office, and they found her a hiding place in a convent. Hermine remained in the convent until 1942 when the Vichy government required that all foreign Jews register with the authorities. Shortly thereafter, on August 27 1942, Hermine was awakened in the middle of the night by one of the nuns, Sister St. Vincent, who told her that the Gestapo had come for her. Hermine requested that the Sister remove all her parents' letters to prevent the Gestapo from knowing anything about her family. She was taken to a detention camp in Aix-en-Provence. She was given a medical examination that revealed that she had appendicitis and needed surgery so Hermine was moved to a nearby Catholic hospital. A nun from her convent and members of the Czech underground visited her and told her not to worry. They arranged to smuggle her out through the laundry exit and took her by taxicab to the Czech underground office in Marseilles. They then brought her back to the convent. Hermine, fearing that the Gestapo would return to look for her, never again corresponded with her parents. The nuns, working with the Czech underground, arranged a new identity for her, changed her name from Katz to Casar and brought her to a different convent, also in Marseilles. That convent had to relocate twice, but Hermine remained with them until her liberation in August 1944. After liberation, Hermine went to the OSE offices in Paris. They advised her not to return to Czechoslovakia, so Hermine asked to be trained to work as an OSE counselor caring for other orphans. She worked for several years in the children's homes of Bellevue, Champfleur and Draveil before immigrating to the United States. In New York, Hermine met and later married Benjamin Marcowitz (b. 6/5/04) a Jewish survivor from Mukachevo. He had served with the Czech army until he was deported to Poland with his wife and child. They were shot in front of him, and he was imprisoned in various concentration camps. After the war, Hermine learned that her parents and seven siblings were deported to Auschwitz in April 1944. Only one sister, Dora, survived. Hermine reunited with her after Dora emigrated from the USSR in 1970.
