Marcel Polak - Paris, France - 1953

I have long been concerned about the plight of immigrants and refugees in the United States and in Europe.  Immigration to the US and Europe was a significant factor in the Brexit vote and our presidential election.

This blog will focus on my family history, especially the challenges my family faced with immigration and citizenship. I think that an ongoing dialogue about current illegal immigrants, new immigrants and refugees is critical. I hope my family history contributes to informing us.

I was born stateless in Paris, France in 1949.  That means that I was not a citizen of any country and therefore lacked any of the important rights of citizenship which are are specific to each country. This was the result of tumultuous 19^th-20^th century European history, long standing discriminatory policies regarding immigrants in Europe and the US, and my own unique family history.

In order to understand why I was born stateless, I have to describe my parents’ family history.  I will provide an overview now, and offer additional details in other future posts.

My father, Bernard (born Burech Pollack), was born in Ruscova, Romania in 1914, in what was then the Austria-Hungarian Empire.  After changing country “affiliation” a few times in the 20^th century, Ruscova is now in a part of northern Romania known as Transylvania (sorry, no known vampires in my family history) and is very close to the present day Ukraine border. His father, Berle Mordechai Pollack, was forcefully drafted into the Austrian-Hungarian army during WW 1 and never came home.

                                                        

Berle Mordechai Pollack - Austrian Hungarian Army - 1910's

The family has no idea how or where he died.  Austria-Hungary lost WW 1 and the empire disintegrated.  After the war, the Austria-Hungarian Empire no longer existed, and my father likely no longer had any citizenship.

In 1929, my father facing a poor economic future (and other challenges) left Romania and came to Paris, France where he had an aunt and uncle.  His name was changed from Burech Pollack to Bernard Polak. 

Bernard Polak - Paris - 1930's

Paris at that time was a refuge for many immigrants from all over Europe, but especially Eastern Europe. He apparently came on some kind of temporary visa. Like so many others in Europe and the US with poor choices in their home countries, he illegally overstayed his visa. At some point in the 1930’s, he was caught by the French authorities and given a choice to be deported back to Romania or to serve in the French Foreign Legion. He chose the latter. He joined before WW 11 and served in North Africa.

CPL Bernard Polak (in white) - French Foreign Legion, Morocco, late 1930's-early 1940's

Bernard Polak - French Foreign Legion - Morocco - (3rd from right) late 1930's- early 1940's

When the Germans invaded France in June 1940, it didn’t take long for the French army and (Vichy) government to surrender.  General DeGaulle, representing the opposition government, went into exile in London and directed Resistance and anti-German opposition. The French Foreign Legion split with one group under Vichy control and the other directed by DeGaulle. My father’s Foreign Legion Battalion fought the Germans in North Africa and he was captured. He was sent to a POW camp in southern Italy, where he escaped and made his way to the allied lines in northern Italy. As the war was not over, he could not return to occupied Paris and he spent the duration of the war in Morocco.  When the war ended he went back to Paris.

My father’s mother, Batia Pollack, his grandparents, and many other close relatives remained in Ruscova, now under Hungarian rule.  In 1944, along with other Hungarian Jews and Elie Wiesel, whose hometown of Sieghet was only about 20 miles away, all my family members in Ruscova were deported to Auschwitz where they were murdered.  

                                                               

Batia Adler Pollack - Ruscova, Romania, born Unter Apsa, Ukraine

My mother, Henni Polak (born Henriette Elter), was born in Mannheim, Germany in 1920 to Polish immigrants (I will later tell their story in more detail. They are the reason for my recent trip to Germany). Germany, like many countries at the time, did not recognize birthright citizenship as does America. Therefore she was never a German citizen but rather a Polish citizen, like her parents.  At some point in the 1930’s the Polish government announced that they were revoking the citizenship of those Poles, including my mother, who had not been in Poland in many years. This rendered her stateless. She experienced the rise of Nazism and Kristallnacht in 1938 (her specific experience later).  Two of her brothers and two sisters were able to leave Germany for Palestine before the war broke out. One other brother, Gustav Elter, had been imprisoned and was murdered at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in 1942. Her father, Salomon Leopold (Solomon was his Jewish name) Elter had left Germany for unknown reasons to Italy before 1938.

                                                                      

Henriette Elter, Mannheim, Germany, 1937-8

                                                    

Leie Krieger Elter, Mannheim, Germany, 1937-8, born in Oswiecim, Poland 

NO KNOWN PHOTOS EXIST OF MY GRANDFATHER – SALOMON LEOPOLD ELTER AND MY UNCLE – GUSTAV ELTER.

On October 22-23, 1940, all the remaining Jews in Mannheim and surrounding areas in the state of Baden, including my mother and grandmother, Leie Elter, were deported en masse to Gurs Concentration Camp in the French Pyrenees. They were given about 24 hours to pack one suitcase.

       

Gurs Concentration Camp, Pyrenees, France. 6500 German Jews deported from Baden (Mannheim state) - originally built for Spanish Republican refugees fleeing Franco's Fascist Spain

Gurs Concentration Camp - Barracks Facsimile 

Gurs Concentration Camp - Artist Depiction - Horrible conditions - US Holocaust Museum

There were numerous concentration camps in France run by the Vichy government. These camps were not extermination camps, although many died from illness and malnutrition.  My mother was able to escape with her partner Artur Schnierer, and my grandmother Leie remained in Gurs. On September 4, 1942 my grandmother and all the remaining Jews in Gurs were deported to Auschwitz, via the notorious Drancy transit camp, outside of Paris.  The French national railroad system, SNCF, was paid to transport her. My grandmother Leie was murdered in Auschwitz. It was a particularly ironic moment for her. The millions of Jews who arrived in Auschwitz had no idea where they were. She did know, as she was born in the nearby Polish town of Oswiecim in 1882.

After my mother escaped from a second camp, Les Milles, my brother Raymond, was born in 1943 in Limoges.  She lived the balance of the war in Occupied France with fake identity papers provided by her partner, Arthur "Turl" Schnierer, and the French Resistance. My brother Raymond was hidden in a series of sympathetic children’s homes and other "safe places". My mother had many close calls with French Police checking her false papers and choosing to let her go. This was mostly the result of luck of being checked by those police who were sympathetic to the plight of Jews in France.

My brother’s father, Arthur "Turl" Schnierer, was a hero in the French Resistance who was eventually captured and sent to Auschwitz and then Buchenwald, which he both survived. He died in his hometown of Vienna, Austria of tuberculosis, which he had contracted in the concentration camps.

When the war ended my mother went to Paris where she met my father and they married. Paris was not simply the romantic destination of today. I was born in 1949 in an old 18^th century slum tenement, 53 Rue de Montreuil in the 11^th arrondisement with no running water in the apartment, a primitive hole in the floor toilet, and huge Parisian rats running around. My father had to club them to death. Because my mother and father were stateless, and France did not recognize birthright citizenship I too was stateless. Six months after I was born, my parents were finally able to get French citizenship and I too became a naturalized French citizen along with my brother.

                                    

Raymond and Marcel Polak, 1953-4                  

I was fortunate to have been born in Paris after the war ended.   I missed by seven years, the Vel D’Hiv roundup of July 1942 when the French police, directed by the Nazis, raided and arrested around 13,000 Jews, including 4,000 children. The French police even violently physically separated infants from their parents.  After being held in different places in horrible conditions they were all shipped in cattle cars to Auschwitz for their mass murder. My brother, born in 1943, could have been one of these children. The last Paris neighborhood I lived in before moving to the US was in the 3^rd arrondisement – 191 Rue du Temple - and is known as the Marais. Today it’s a chic boutique neighborhood with many traditional Jewish restaurants and a few synagogues remaining. Today tourists would not believe the horror that took place in the 1940’s as the French Police rounded up Jewish children from local schools and homes.

191 Rue du Temple- on left- 3rd arrondisement, Marais, last address in Paris

Park across from 191 Rue du Temple - where I played as a child

                             

Memorial in Park to neighborhood Jewish children deported and murdered from 1942-4
 Note ages: Children as young as 1 year old

To be continued.........