Group portrait of the students and staff of the Malmaison children's home.
Overview
- Caption
- Group portrait of the students and staff of the Malmaison children's home.
Among those pictured are the director, Dr. Cecile Wexler, Jean Maurice Bito, Toto, Anna, Jacques Korman and Simon Noz (seated on fifth step, far right, with light colored dress). - Date
-
1946
- Locale
- Rueil-Malmaison, [Seine-et-Oise] France
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Nadine Lieberman
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Nadine Lieberman
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Nadine Lieberman (born Simone Noz) is the daughter of Alexander Noz and Eleonora Rosenthal. Alexander, a scholar from Vilna, traveled to Warsaw where he met Eleonora. They married and Simone was born there on February 13, 1930. Soon afterwards the family moved to Paris, and a second child, Albert, was born in 1932. Alexander worked as a glove leather cutter, and the family lived in a one-room basement apartment. After a while they moved to the somewhat nicer, Jewish neighborhood of Belleville. Still poor, the family lived in one medium sized room with a kitchen. A third child, Bertrand, was born in 1937. Simone helped care for the baby and nicknamed him Dede. After the start of war, Alexander was rounded up on the streets of Paris when he went out to get cigarettes. He was sent to an internment camp and from there to Drancy and later Auschwitz, where he perished. During the summer 1942, Eleonora sent Simone and Dede to a farm run by a social service agency outside of Paris. Eleonora came to visit the children once. That was the last time Simone saw her mother. Upon her return to Paris, she learned of the Vel D'Hiv round-ups of July 16 and 17, 1942. Eleonora and Albert were among the over 12,000 Jews who were arrested during those two days. They were taken to Auschwitz where they perished, Eleonora at the age of 30 and Albert at the age of 9. Afterwards Simone and Dede moved from place to place sheltered by different people, including a prostitute who entertained German Gestapo in the next room. They also were hidden by Madame Irma, a Christian woman married to a Jewish bookseller. A friend of Eleonora, she not only temporarily hid the children but also salvaged a photograph and small ring form their former apartment. Their final safe house was in a pleasant Parisian suburb called Aulnay sur Bois. After liberation, Simone and Bertrand were taken to OSE children's homes: Dede went to Vieux Phare and Simone to Malmaison. Run by Dr. Cecile Wechsler, Malmaison housed about nine or ten girls and thirty boys. During the day Simone commuted to Montparnasse where she studied fashion design and drawing. In 1946 Dede was adopted by an American couple and moved to New York. Simone immigrated to the United States after her first marriage in 1959.
- Record last modified:
- 2004-08-09 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1134110
