Noach Szejniuk, the only child of Fejge and Motel Szejniuk, was born in 1936, in Paris, France. Paris was a glittering, cosmopolitan city, where Jews were well integrated into social and cultural life. Feige and Motel had moved to Paris long before Noach was born to escape the oppressive antisemitism of Poland and to live in a more liberal atmosphere. Motel worked in a soda factory.
When the Nazis invaded France in June 1940, Noach was 4 years old. The Germans immediately passed harsh antisemitic measures, barring Jews from most professions and from public schools. In October 1940, the Germans and the recently formed French Vichy government initiated comprehensive “Jewish Laws.” Additional antisemitic measures were enacted, and some 6,000 Jews lost their citizenship.
In the summer of 1942, Jews were forced to wear yellow stars to identify them as Jews. Soon after, the Germans began rounding up Jews, sending them to Drancy Transit Camp for deportation to “the East.”
Noach’s desperate parents found a home for him with sympathetic Christians, who were willing to risk their lives in order to hide and save him.
Noach’s mother was arrested and sent to a concentration camp near the Spanish border. Somehow she managed to escape and made her way over a treacherous route through the Pyrenees Mountains, finding refuge in Barcelona, Spain. Noach’s father was also arrested and interned in a concentration camp. He was also able to escape and made his way back to Paris. In March 1943, he was discovered hiding in a barn by the Nazis and immediately shot to death.
Paris was liberated by Allied troops in August 1943. Noach’s mother, searching for her son, retraced her steps over the Pyrenees Mountains and returned to Paris. There she found her 7-year-old son still safely living with his caring Christian guardians.
The Nazis and their collaborators murdered 1.5 million Jewish children during the Holocaust. Noach was one of the few to survive. A personal history from the Archives of the SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER 1991-268 [014]
