Biography
Asher Klein is the son of Jacques and Margot (nee Bloch) Klein. Both of his parents were raised in Orthodox homes in France. Jacques was the youngest child of Alexander (b. May 26, 1879 in Paris) and Marguerite nee Meyer Klein (b. March 3, 1891 in Mulhouse). Jacques was born on July 27, 1929 in Strasbourg. His siblings were Genevieve (Janet, later Zelikowski-Guttel b. June 2, 1910), Fanny (later Sternberg, b. Nov. 22, 1911), Henri (b. November 30, 1911 in Mulhouse), Naphtalie-Theodore Klein (b. June 22, 1913), Pierre (Shlomo-Zeev), Madeline (Mady) Klein (later Elbogen, b. 10/19/22 in Mulhouse) and Claire Klein (b. June 9, 1924). Jacques fled to Switzerland in the summer of 1944 with a group of other youth and studied in a yeshiva in Montreux until Pesach 1945. His parents remained in Roanne.
Janet was married to Adrien-Gustave Zelikowski, an educator in the strictly observant OSE children's home, Chateau des Morelles. They and their five children escaped to Switzerland in the spring and summer of 1944. Pierre was a soldier in the French Army at the start of the war. Captured in the early days of the war, he survived in a prisoner-of-war camp. He married Florine Muller. Naphtalie-Theodore Klein married Edith nee Orner Klein, survived the war, moved to Israel and passed away at the age of 94. Fanny Klein survived the war in Roanne along with her parents. After the war she settled in Paris where she married Alexander Sternberg in 1945 or 1946. She died in 1993.
Madeline (Mady) Klein Elbogen and Claire Klein had been students in University of Strasbourg. The school relocated during the war to Clermont Ferrand. One day there was a man-hunt at the university. Mady, who went by her married name Ellbogen was immediately recognized as a Jew and arrested. Claire was initially spared but after she enquired what would happen to her sister, she also was arrested. They were deported on Convoy # 66 on January 20, 1944 to Auschwitz where they perished immediately. Henri Klein, Mady's husband, Naftali Elllbogen, and their cousin Rabbi Shmuel (Sami) Klein all belonged to the Jewish underground. They were arrested in Saint Etienne and shot by the Germans on June 27, 1944. They were then buried in a Christian cemetery. After war they were reburied in Jewish cemetery in Lyon.
Miriam Gross (born Miriam Muller) is the daughter of Matthieu Muller (b. August 13, 1895 in Diemeringen, Alsace) and Alice Bauer (b. November 25, 1903 in Avignon). He had one brother Camille. Miriam was born on October 20, 1928 in Paris where her father Matthieu was a lawyer. He also served as president of the French branch of the Orthodox Jewish organization, the Agudat Yisrael. She had four sisters: Florine (later Klein, b. January 1927), Judith (later Schwartzman, b. March 23, 1933), Edith (later Bloch, b. January 24, 1937) and Noemie (later Schoenthal, b. February 19, 1938). The family was orthodox, but the children attended public schools. Matthieu Muller became very well known as he was involved in one of the libel trials against the Nazi publicist, Julius Streicher. All of the other lawyers involved were killed, and Miriam's mother was very worried about their safety. In either 1939 or 1940, the family left Paris for their summer home in Blancheface. They had purchased it in 1937 as they wanted a place that was far away from any railroad so as to feel safe from danger. They remained there until the Germans entered Belgium in May 1940. They lived there with both sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles on both sides and cousins. Altogether there were ten children there. Mathieu was not mobilized into the French army although his two brothers were. From there they left and stayed in a castle in the Pyrenees only ten kilometers from the Spanish border just in case they needed to escape. Miriam remembers churning butter with her siblings and other children living there. Since the family lived in the countryside they always managed to obtain enough food. In November 1942 they crossed into Switzerland with the help of a guide who was a convent gardener of a convent. This person later was deported to Auschwitz.
They were sent to a camp in Geneva where they remained until February 1943 and then left for a village (Mosbad) in the Alps. Matthieu had a colleague in Switzerland before the war who helped them get out of the refugee camp. Afterwards, Matthieu moved to Geneva where he became acquainted with George Mandel-Mantello, a Hungarian Jew who had fled to Switzerland and was working as first secretary to the Salvadoran consul. Muller maintained his connection to the Agudah, and he approached Mantello on their behalf seeking Salvadoran passports for friends and relatives under Nazi occupation. Though Mantello could not create passports he agreed to provide Salvadoran citizenship papers to anyone who wanted them. Muller worked in Mantello's office and helped produce the thousands of certificates over the next two years. Miriam, though still quite helped her father type up the certificates. After the war, the Muller family returned to France, and Miriam eventually moved to Israel.
