Kestenberg Archive

BG was born in Paris, 1938 and has two older sisters. She suffered "gaps" in her memory for many years. From 1942, they hid in Le Vigen village, 14 Km from Limoges. Her father manufactured boots and leather bags and was active in the underground. Nobody knew they were Jews. In 1944, the Gestapo took her parents and two sisters to jail. BG was terrified and ran away to a neighbor with whom she stayed for a while. Her memory consists of pictures, voices and feelings. She was then transferred by the Assistance Publique to an orphanage in Villa Robert on May 1944, for one month. Her next place was with a cruel woman with a horrible voice. BG prayed that her parents will return. The lady said: Don't pray! Your parents are dead. Darkness terrifies her until today. ; She was told not to mention that she was Jewish, and had no idea what being Jewish means, only that it's something terrible, shameful. She was brought back to her family after the war, and afterwards she never left her mother's side and considers her mother as the most important person in her life. Her father was liberated and after a few months in the village they returned to Paris. She and her sister were sent away to another village for two years for economical reasons. They stayed in the country with a Catholic farmer and worked in the fields. The farmer was an alcoholic and brutal. The two were usually hungry and used to steal fruit from the orchards. They went to school in the village; the teacher slapped her when she couldn't concentrate in class. The family reunited in Paris in 1947 where they lived 2-3 years before they moved to Australia. ; BG took a trip "To retrieve her memory" in 1992 which was for her an unbelievable time. "I was like a sleeping beauty. Things were waiting for me. I arrived at the right time… everything had been waiting for me all these years". They found all her youth locations. They visited Oradour sur Glane, a nearby village of which all inhabitants were shot by the SS on late 1944. She remembered visiting the place in her childhood after the catastrophe. They went to her childhood house in Le Vigen. BG connects her memory gaps to bad times. When she returned to Australia the family including sisters and mother, gathered and told their stories for 10 hours straight, and later for many hours. Her father never related to the difficulties in their lives, never spoke about the separation, about the pain, missing his daughters or how the girls felt when away. "I was marvelous in imitating; I tried to melt into the background". In Australia she went to a Jewish youth movement and there she first heard about Israel and Jewish life. Though she was the life of the party, she felt like a scared little girl, living a fraud. After going to psychological treatment she became a manager of a School of Languages. She belongs since two years to a Child-Survivor group. A trip to Israel changed her life. For the first time she felt at home among all immigrants, proud to be Jewish. She left because she couldn't stand the separation from her mother and sisters. She has a son and a daughter.