Oscar Kranz

They arrived at the French border in Lapan, but it was closed, so they returned to Antwerp.

In October 1940, the first anti-Jewish law was enacted, prohibiting kosher slaughter. Later that month, all Jews had to be registered. By May 1941, Jewish stores were ordered to place signs in their windows marking them as Jewish. In August, Jews faced further restrictions: curfews were imposed, and they were required to carry identity cards.

By 1942, Jews were barred from parks, theaters, cinemas, and sporting events, and they were restricted to the rear of city trams. On April 14, 1941, the Antwerp Pogrom occurred when 200 Flemish fascists and several German soldiers marched through the town center after watching an antisemitic film, smashing store windows, destroying Torah scrolls, prayer books, and bibles, and setting a synagogue on fire. Oscar was just five years old at the time.

In August 1942, Oscar’s father arranged for false papers with Flemish names, stating they were traveling to Switzerland for vacation. The women traveled by train, while the men were smuggled across the border into France. They took a train from Brussels to Paris and from there to Vichy. They faced several stops at the border, but were allowed to pass.

Milich was a powerful military organization whose aim was to hunt for Jews and hand them to the French police, who would send them to Drancy, the main French concentration camp.

Oskar’s mother bought five tickets to a small town on the French side of Lake Geneva, close to the Swiss border (his aunt did not join because it was the Eve of Yom Kippur).

Oscar, then seven, lived with a Jewish Swiss family, the Landes, in Luzern and attended local public school while also attending Hebrew school.

Oscar stayed with the Landes for two years before being sent to a Jewish children’s home in Heiden, near the German border. He attended public school during the day and received religious instruction in the afternoons.

Oscar’s mother found an apartment and brought him back to Antwerp, where he was registered in a Jewish school, Tachkemoni. His father had died, and his mother worked in the diamond exchange. She placed Oscar’s sister, Rachel, who had cerebral palsy, in a Catholic institution run by nuns.

Oscar and his mother immigrated to the United States, but they could not bring Rachel because she would not pass the medical exam.

He was imprisoned at Mal-Coiffee Prison in Mullins, where he was kept in a dungeon until he was transferred to Pithiviers camp on September 24, 1942, and then to Beaune-la-Rolande Internment Camp. On September 27, he was sent to Drancy, and the next day he was deported to Blechhammer, a forced labor camp for Jews in Upper Silesia, Germany.