Rachelle Flantzer sells hats in the market.
Overview
- Caption
- Rachelle Flantzer sells hats in the market.
- Date
-
1937 - 1939
- Locale
- France
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Solange Gluckman
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Solange Gluckman
Keywords & Subjects
- Keyword
- FENCES HATS JEWS (FRENCH) JEWS (POLISH) MARKETS WOMEN
- Photo Designation
-
LIFE BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST -- France -- Economic Life/Daily Life
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Solange Flantzer (later Gluckman) was born in Paris on May 22, 1936 to parents Aron "Leon" Flantzer (b. September 1905 in Kazimierz, Poland) and Caroline "Claire" (nee Pessach) Flantzer (b. April 7, 1909 in Salonika). She had two brothers, Gilbert (b. December 29, 1933) and Pierre (b. 1941).
Leon’s parents were Chil and Chaya Flantzer. Chil worked as a milliner, and the couple had four children in addition to Leon: Chana, Deborah, Rachelle, and Charles. After Chaya died in childbirth, Chil married Beile, a cousin, and continued to live in Poland. Like his father, Leon worked as a milliner, but he immigrated to Paris in the early 1930s in order to earn a better living. There, he met and married Claire.
Claire’s parents were Youssef Pessah and Marie (nee Barouh) Pessah. Both were born in Salonika, as were Claire’s five siblings: Esther, Moise ("Maurice"), Ricoula ("Beki"), Vital, and Marthe. They spoke Judeo-Spanish at home, and Claire studied French at a Catholic school. The entire family immigrated to Paris some time before 1912, while Salonika was still under Turkish rule. Claire's mother died of an illness in 1936.
Leon and Claire worked at home during the week, and on the weekends travelled to open air markets to sell their hats. After the Germans invaded France in 1940, new laws were instituted that forbade Jews from working, and required them to wear the yellow star. Leon and Claire refused to comply, and continued to work. Because Leon was not a French citizen, he received a notice (billet vert) in April 1941 requiring him to report to the local police. In May, he was sent to a men’s work camp in Pithivier. Claire continued to live in the apartment, and gave birth to their third child, Pierre, while Leon was imprisoned. She later took in her niece, Estelle, whose mother (Leon’s sister Rachelle) was thought to have been killed in the Vel D’Hiv roundup in July.
In 1942, shortly after the roundup, Claire began seeking a hiding place for her children. While selling hats in the markets of Montargis, she made the acquaintance another vendor, Madame Chauvineau, who lived in the village of Dordives, south of Paris. Madame Chauvineau was able to arrange for the children to live with a laundress who lived across from her, named Madame Mainfroid. Although many of the villagers realized that the children were Jewish, no one informed on them and Solange and her brothers were able to attend school. When Germans entered the village, the children were sent to hide in Madame Chauvineau’s cellar. Food was scarce, and as a result Pierre became malnourished and Solange contracted tuberculosis. Gilbert recalls seeing his mother only once during the time the children were in hiding.
Claire continued to sell in the markets with her sister-in-law, Marie, until they were picked up in a raid in a bistro on rue Vielle de Temple. They were sent to La Petite Roquette, a women’s prison, and from there to Drancy. On June 15, 1942 Leon was sent on a transport to Auschwitz, where he was tattooed with the number 42009. He was killed in the gas chambers on July 9, 1942. Claire was deported to Auschwitz on convoy #58 on July 31, 1943, where she was killed.
After the end of the war, Leon’s half-brother Charles arrived and took Pierre into his home to help him regain his health. Although Madame Chauvaneau wanted to adopt Solange and Gilbert, they were sent to Jewish orphanages, the last of which was Cailly sur Eure in Normandy. Later, Gilbert was sent to a boarding school at Maimonides. Solange went to live with her father’s half-sister Melanie, her husband Hermann Frenkel, and their three children Robert, Freddy, and Jean Claude. Solange lived with them until she married at age 25. She saw very little of her brothers. In 1962 Solange and her husband moved to Israel, where their first daughter was born. Their marriage ended in divorce, Solange remarried, and had a second daughter.
- Record last modified:
- 2020-04-13 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1184844
