Testimony of Bertha (Markovitz) Jochimek, born in Liegnitz, Germany, 1920, regarding her experiences in Liege, Marmande and in hiding in Belgium and France

Testimony of Bertha (Markovitz) Jochimek, born in Liegnitz, Germany, 1920, regarding her experiences in Liege, Marmande and in hiding in Belgium and France Move to Liege, Belgium, 1924; attends a school for girls and a vocational high school (bookkeeping and secretarial studies); her family lacks Belgian citizenship; receives a Nansen passport (document for non-citizens issued by the Commission for Refugees of the League of Nations); work in a tobacco factory, 1936; work as an assistant bookkeeper in a replacement parts factory; displays of antisemitism. Knowledge regarding the fate of the Jews, May 1940; shelling; escape on trains to an unknown destination; arrival to Marmande, France; supply of food by the Red Cross; sleeps in a church; receives an apartment and pocket money; German occupation; return to Belgium; work; anti-Jewish decrees and restrictions; curfew at night; yellow badge, 1941; forced labor in a motorcycle factory; "Aktion" against the laborers, 1942; release of the witness and her sister; detention of her mother in Malines; attempt to involve the Red Cross; escape from a second "Aktion"; move to Tilff; work as an accountant; life using a false identity; deportation of her sister to Auschwitz, March 1943; witness joins the underground; return to Liege; work on a farm while using a false name; liberation by the US Army. Meets Jewish Brigade people; aliya to Eretz Israel, 1946.