Group portrait of children at the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) children's home at the Château de Vaucelles in Taverny.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 78176

Overview

Caption: Group portrait of children at the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) children's home at the Château de Vaucelles in Taverny.

Felice Zimmern is seated in the first row, far left and her sister Beate is seated next to her (second from the left). Sitting next to them are Francine and Edmee. At the end of the girls' row is Lise Behar. Seated in the back is the counselor Helene Ekayser. The boy second from the right is Leon Bretmel.
Date: Circa 1947
Locale: Taverny, [Val-d'Oise] France
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Felice Zimmern Stokes
Event History: The Taverny children's home, Chateau de Vaucelles, was opened in 1945 to accommodate 60 religious child survivors of Buchenwald. It was directed by Judith Hemmediger and her assistant Gaby (Nini) Wolf.

Photo Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Provenance: Felice Zimmern Stokes

Source Record ID: HCC

Keyword: ASSISTANCE COMMITTEES BALCONIES/TERRACES/PORCHES CHILDREN (4-12 YEARS) CHILDREN'S HOMES CHILDREN'S HOMES (TAVERNY) CHILDREN'S HOMES (VAUCELLES) CHILDREN/YOUTH DPS (JEWISH) ENTRANCES GROUP PORTRAITS OSE (OEUVRE DE SECOURS AUX ENFANTS) STAIRS
Photo Designation: DISPLACED PERSONS/RETURN TO LIFE -- Orphans/Children's Homes/Summer Camps -- France -- Taverny

Biography: Felice Stokes (born Felice Zimmern) is the daughter of David (b. 1896) and Lydia (Bloch) Zimmern (b. 1898). She was born October 18, 1939 in Walldurn, Germany. She has one older sister, Beate (b. December 30, 1937). On October 22, 1940 the Zimmern family was deported over the French border to the Gurs internment camp. In early 1942, a relief worker from the OSE came to the camp to request permission to remove the children. The Zimmerns agreed, and the children were sent to La Pouponnière, a home for preschool age children in Limoges. Felice and Beate lived there for two years, and were then hidden apart from one another separate private homes. For the next two years Felice lived with Gaston and Juliette Patoux, farmers who owned a vineyard in La Caillaudière, near Vendoeuvres. The Patoux family cared for her as if she were their own child until liberation. Three months before the end of the war, Beate joined her there. When the war was over, the girls moved to OSE homes in Draveil (where they lived for two years) and Taverny (where they stayed for another three years), before immigrating to the United States in 1951. Felice and Beate's parents were transferred from Gurs to Rivesaltes in August 1942, and from there to Drancy in September. They were deported to their death in Auschwitz on convoy #40 that departed November 4, 1942. In 1974 Gaston and Juliette Patoux were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.