Simone Veil
Honorary president of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah.
Simone Veil was born Simone Annie Jacob on 13 July 1927 in Nice, the daughter of a Jewish architect. A lawyer and politician, she served as a member of the Constitutional Council of France and was the first president of the European Parliament.
Marceline Loridan-Ivens
Directed a live-action film
Marceline Loridan-Ivens, born Marceline Rosenberg in March 1928 in Épinal, is a French filmmaker. She was born to Jewish parents who emigrated to France in 1919. At the beginning of World War II, her family settled in Vaucluse where it was active in the Resistance.
Paul Schaffer
Born and raised in Vienna
Born and raised in Vienna, Paul Schaffer received an excellent Jewish education before finding himself, with the rest of his family, fleeing the Nazis after the annexation of Austria. The family settled shortly in Belgium and then moved to Revel, a small village in south-west France near Toulouse.
Bart Stern
Describes role of friendships in survival at Auschwitz
Born 1926, Hungary
Following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, Bart was forced into a ghetto established in his home town. From May to July 1944, the Germans deported Jews from Hungary to the Auschwitz extermination camp in occupied Poland. Bart was deported by cattle car to Auschwitz.
Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall
Born 1929, Klucarky, Czechoslovakia
Born 1929, Klucarky, Czechoslovakia
Fritzie's father emigrated to the U.S., but by the time he could bring his family over, war had begun and Fritzie's mother feared attacks on transatlantic shipping. Fritzie, her mother, and two brothers were eventually sent to Auschwitz. Her mother and brothers died.
Kate Bernath
Born 1927, Szikszo, Hungary
Born 1927, Szikszo, Hungary
After the German invasion of Hungary in 1944, Kate and her family were deported first to the Kosice ghetto and then to the Auschwitz camp in Poland. Kate and other prisoners were sent on to the Plaszow camp, also in Poland.