Names Not Numbers

Renee Silver

Saarbrucken, Saarland Germany

In Hiding

1931

Renee Silver

Saarbrucken, Saarland Germany

1931

Renee was born on February 24, 1931, in Saarbrucken, Saarland, Germany. She had one younger sister. Her father was a businessman working in scrap metal, while her mother was a housewife. In 1935, her family left Germany and moved to Sarreguemines, France.

In 1935, when she was just a child, Renee’s maid took her to watch a parade welcoming Hitler.

An SS soldier, in a bizarre moment, lifted Renee onto his shoulders so she could get a better view of the parade.

In 1940, Renee and her family were arrested and sent to Gurs concentration camp in southwestern France, just north of the Pyrenees, because they were considered foreigners and potential spies.

Their internment was not initially due to their Jewish identity, but because they were suspected members of the "Cinquième Colonne," a term referring to potential spies. They were detained from May to August of 1940 along with many other foreigners, both Jews and non-Jews.

When the Germans invaded France, they liberated the foreigners from the camps in June 1940, clearing the camps for their own use.

Renee’s family then went to Lyon, where they faced numerous challenges under the Vichy government. By 1942, Renee and her sister were sent into hiding, and her parents went into hiding separately, protected by non-Jewish friends.

Her grandmother and two cousins traveled to Marseille to await possible transportation to the U.S. Renee’s immediate family relocated to Villeurbanne, near Lyon, where they finally realized the full extent of France’s collaboration with the Germans.

In October 1942, Renee’s family fled to Switzerland, where they lived in a refugee camp until the war ended.

After the war, they returned to France but found that their home had been completely looted and stolen.

Renee, her parents, and her sister were the only members of their family on both sides who survived the war. In July 1947, they immigrated to the United States. At the age of 19, Renee married and went on to have one son, one daughter, and today, she has two grandsons.

Names Not Numbers

Renee Silver

Renee Silver

The End