Joseph von Hoppen Waldhorn was the French-Jewish son of Rosa (neé Israel) Waldhorn and Michael von Hoppen Waldhorn
Joseph von Hoppen Waldhorn was the French-Jewish son of Rosa (neé Israel) Waldhorn and Michael von Hoppen Waldhorn. He was born in Paris on the 14th of November 1930. He had two sisters: Zalie (1927) and Helene (1922).
His father was a Polish Jew and his mother a Hungarian Jew. Joseph and Zalie were born in Paris while their sister was born in Czechoslovakia, in her mother's birthplace after it was annexed to Czechoslovakia from Hungary. After the German invasion of France, foreign-born Jews were deported first. In 1941, Michael was imprisoned in Drancy where he remained for 6 months. In 1942, not long after he was released, he was once again arrested and sent back to Drancy. 6 days later, he was put on a cattle train to Auschwitz where was murdered on arrival on the 24th of July 1942.
After Michael was deported, Rosa went into hiding in an attic in Paris. She was denounced by an informant and deported to Auschwitz on the 2nd of September 1943. She did not return. Helene managed to avoid the deportations by using fake papers and giving herself a new identity. As she was very skilled at German, she got an office job with the German military in Alencon and secretly began collaborating with the French resistance. She was eventually denounced as a member in 1944 but her Jewish heritage wasn't known. She was deported to Ravensbrück where she was liberated in 1945. After the deportation of her mother, Zalie left Paris with false papers which portrayed her as 16 year Zalie Guerin. Due to her blonde hair and blue eyes, she was believed to be a non-Jewish French teenager. She worked as a secretary in Alencon until she was discovered to be Jewish and beaten by the Germans.
She was deported to Auschwitz on the 31st of July 1944 but was liberated in 1945. Joseph fled Paris in 1941 and went to live with the sister of a friend in Western France and hidden in her farm. He had false papers which gave him the name Georges Guerin. Unlike his sisters, he survived the war in hiding
Remember Joseph von Hoppen Waldhorn and his family. May their memories be a blessing ✡
1. Joseph
2. Zalie
3. Helene
#theholocaust #rip #auschwitz #holocaustvictims #annefrank #ww2 #history
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