Family genealogy
The Berliners
It all started with a childhood memory.
With my parents, we would visit some of my mother's cousins in the Chevreuse Valley (greater Parisian suburbs) on some Sundays.
This place name is not forgotten, nor is the name of the cousins; "the great and the little Charles".
I spoke about it to Madeleine Kronental, my mother's first cousin.
She enlightened us: she continued to be in contact with the wife of "little" Charles.
She knew the children of "Great" Charles.
We will meet Gisèle, the wife of "little" Charles. And we have learned their stories.
I asked the archives for the file of the "great" Charles and the family links became clear.
The "great" Charles Berliner
He was born Szlama Baruch Berliner in January 1912. He died in 1994.
His father was Abraham (Avram) Berliner, born in 1880.
His mother bore a name that immediately establishes our family ties: Eva (Hawa) Sternis, born in 1881 and already dead when Szlama applied for naturalization in 1933.
He had an older brother who was in Paris when he decided to emigrate.
Yitsock Berliner, born in 1907, was therefore 5 years his senior.
When he joined her, he was a shop employee working in a rubber-related business at 84 rue des amandiers in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. They lived together for quite some time.
He also had a younger sister.
She was 14 years old in 1933, was a schoolgirl and still lived with her father in Warsaw.
Sarah was born in 1917. She had to emigrate in 1934/35.
When Charles arrived in Paris in October 1929, he and his brother lived at 84 rue Amandiers in a furnished apartment until May 18, 1930. Then, apparently, he got restless: he lived at 80 Boulevard de la Villette for three months. Like his brother, he worked from home as a rubber fitter for the Arross company at 3 rue Etienne Marcel.
Then he had several addresses, including hotels: 14 rue de Ménilmontant in Paris 20th, then 22 rue de Tlemcen, 2 rue des maronites, 14 rue Delaître, still in the 20th.
In August 1932, he joined his brother at 84 rue des Amandiers.
At that time he was earning 300 francs a week, and sharing an annual rent of 1600 francs with his brother.
In the police investigation conducted for his naturalization, he was declared to be well assimilated and proficient in French.
He attends evening classes, but it is not said in which subject.
He was naturalized in 1934.
From April 15, 1935 to April 15, 1936, he did his military service in the 137th Infantry Regiment in Strasbourg and obtained a certificate of good conduct.
He underwent a period of training from August 7 to 20, 1938, and was again incorporated from September 24 to October 9, 1938.
Having returned to civilian life, he was declared a "fairground merchant" in Parisian goods, at various markets in the Paris region.
Recalled to general mobilization on August 24, 1939, to the 154th Infantry Regiment, he served throughout the campaign with the armies and was permanently discharged on February 7, 1940, for "mitral insufficiency, dating from childhood".
He joined his brother at 21 rue Houdart in the 20th arrondissement.
Officially, he left that address to go to the free zone as early as 1941.
No one to tell me if he was really there and where, or if he was hiding in Paris.
During the war, he was subject to a denaturalization procedure pronounced in March 1944, with the comment "No adverse information".
I don't know how he survived the war.
After the war, he married Odette Farber and had two sons, Jean-Pierre and Patrick, whom I do not know.
He died in 1994 in Ivry-sur-Seine.
From left to right:
Szlama Baruch says - Charles Berliner;
- Sarah Berliner, who was deported;
- One of their cousins who, after the war, went to Israel;
-Yitsock the elder, who I think was deported.
Sarah Berliner and
"Little" Charles
I don't know when or why Sarah joined her brothers in Paris. Perhaps after her father's death, leaving her an orphan.
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She was born in 1917 in Warsaw and unfortunately was deported to Auschwitz following the Vel d'Hiv roundup on July 16, 1942.
Upon arriving in Paris, Sarah had to live with her brothers or at least one of them at 14 rue de Ménilmontant.
Then it seems she met a Hungarian man, whose name is unknown. She had a child with him, born on September 10, 1939, at St. Louis Hospital in the 10th arrondissement. Only his mother registered the birth.
She moved to 3 rue Etienne Dolet, still in the 20th arrondissement, from 1941 to July 1942.
Family history tells us that her partner was arrested, though we don't know why or exactly when, perhaps before her son was born. She must have been able to contact him because he knew her address.
Warned by a neighbor and a social worker about the mid-July 1942 roundup, she refused to leave, arguing that if her partner returned, it was the only place where he could find her.
However, she agreed to entrust her son to this social worker.
The following day, she was taken by the French police to the Vel d'Hiv and then to Drancy, from July 16 to July 26, 1942.
She left on July 27th on convoy number 11. There were 1000 people. 12 people returned.
"This convoy contains:
- Rywka Gryn (44 years old), the mother of Tony Gryn , resistance fighter, journalist for the Yiddish press in Paris, Israeli ambassador to Niger and then to Rwanda ;
- Szyfra Hopensztand (36 years old),
- Chaja Fensterszab (44 years old), the mother of Ida Grinspan (14 years old), (deported on convoy no. 68 , survivor),
- Nuchim Plocki (50 years old) and Rifka Plocki (41 years old), the parents of Maurice Rajsfus ,
- Sura Goldfajn (29 years old) and her sister Cypora Ajzenberg (35 years old),
- Fajga Cybulski née Pinkwasser (54 years old), Patrick Braoudé 's grandmother."
The reunion of uncle and nephew
A few years after the end of the war, Charles (Szlama) was visiting a cousin. He ran into a former neighbor of his sister who asked him for news of "little" Charles.
In his opinion, Charles had been deported with his mother.
This former neighbor of her sister told her that Sarah had entrusted her to a social worker.
Szlama/Charles set out to find his nephew. The social worker had placed him in the countryside. His search led him to the high school in Autun where he found his nephew in 1949. He adopted him.
Charles Berliner (the little one) became a ward of the nation in March 1955.
He married Gisèle Nakache in May 1975, and had two daughters, Sandrine and
He died in March 1991. My parents were at his funeral.
Yitsock Berliner
He was the eldest in the family. He was given the first name of his grandfather Sternis, which suggests that the latter had died at his birth in 1907.
I don't know much about him.
Why did he come to Paris and when?
He was there when his brother joined him in 1929.
Unlike his brother, I have no record of his naturalization.
He was a rubber worker.
What happened to him during the war? Was he arrested?
He does not appear in the list of deportees from France.
Its mystery remains unsolved.