Yisrael Birnberg

Testimony of Yisrael Birnberg, born in Antwerp, Belgium, 1937, regarding his experiences as a child in hiding in a convent in Kortrijk, Belgium Childhood in the home of his parents, stateless immigrants from Poland. The German occupation, 1940; his father's departure for France on business; start of the deportations from Belgium, summer, 1942; sending of forged documents for his mother, his sister, and him by his father; their departure for Paris by train; forcing the passengers to leave the train in Menin, on the Belgian-French border; detention of his mother who denied that his sister and he were her children; gathering of the witness and his sister by a Belgian policeman who took them to the Verue convent in Kortrijk; murder of his mother in Auschwitz, September 1942; life in hiding in the convent with the nuns who were endangering themselves; destruction of the convent by a bomb, 1944; transfer to the Stella Maris convent in the area; his father's return, and their removal from the convent; move to Brussels. Being cared for by a [female] friend of his mother, 1945-1946; wanderings with his sister connected to his father's unsuccessful business; connection with a Catholic [female] caregiver, 1946; his father's departure for the United States; move to the home of the caregiver in Tubize, south of Brussels, with his sister; his father's return; entrusting of the witness and his sister to an OPEJ Institution in Cessieu financed by the Joint Distribution Committee ; life in the institution until 1950; transfer of the witness and his sister to an OPEJ institution in Paris; life in the institution for seven years; the witness' aliya, 1957; absorption.