Tante Annie | Genialogie Familiale

Our aunt Annie
and his Firer family

"Aunt Annie's" life was not easy.

She was very present during our childhood and later on as well.

We often went to her apartment on Rue Turbigo, a studio apartment filled with dressmaker's mannequins. I can still hear the sound of the press on the fabric. To my child's eyes, it was bigger than our place, and she had a balcony.

I remember the "Christmas/Hanukha" we spent together.

One year, she gave my sister and me real "bathing" prams which we proudly pushed down the long hallway of our apartment.

Later, she bought a house with a garden in Crosnes, near Villeneuve St Georges. The families of the three sisters would gather there on Sundays.

We were playing with his little dog, Lassie, a kind of Fox Terrier.

Our cousins Jackie and Lucien were older than us, we really enjoyed playing alongside these "big" teenagers.

Childhood

Just like my uncle Raymond, Annie didn't have only fond memories of her childhood. Their mother was quite different from their older sister.

I found no record of his schooling.

I don't know what she did outside of school.

Until he was fifteen, the whole family lived in a small two-room apartment near the Platzel. What's more, they hosted family who had come from Poland.

When she was ten years old, my mother was born and this new baby was bound to attract the attention of the older girls.

She had to go to apprenticeship as a seamstress around the age of fourteen because the family was not rich.

Marriage.

Here again a mini drama unfolded: my Grandmother didn't want Annie to get married before her sister, using the pretext of sharing the wedding dress.

However, she knew Jean Firer long before Marie met her future husband.

Annie took it badly, but she had to wait. She got married on February 18, 1937 at the town hall of the 19th arrondissement.

She was a seamstress. Jean (Judel) Firer was born in Lubartov, Poland, on February 7, 1911.

He arrived in Paris with his mother and siblings around 1930.

He was a tailor and lived at 343 rue des Pyrenées in the 20th arrondissement.

Jean's witness was Maurice Firer, his brother, also a tailor, 5 rue Saint Antoine.

Annie's witness was Grandmother's cousin, Mariem Parchewski, a shopkeeper at 83 bis rue Lafayette.

Annie went to live with Jean on rue des Pyrenées.

7c3551ca-8361-46cf-b1fc-15d426716acb_edi

Their first son was born on September 29, 1939. It was the declaration of war.

From May-June 1940 onwards, life became more difficult for my aunt as anti-Jewish laws were gradually implemented. I don't believe she and Jean owned a business and were therefore unaffected by the confiscations. My aunt was French by birth, and her parents were naturalized citizens, but I'm not sure if that was the case for Jean.

My aunt and Jacky stayed at 343 rue des Pyrenées, but Jean remained hidden in a maid's room on the top floor of the building. My aunt told us that she had to bribe a police commissioner who lived in the building from 1942 to 1944.

I don't know what happened to Jean's family, except that many of them were tailors.

The Liberation must have given the family renewed courage and a taste for life; Firer: a new child arrived at the home on July 12, 1944.

Lucien Firer, certainly born at Tenon Hospital.

A third pregnancy occurred: Gérard was born on May 16, 1946. But he was to die two months later on July 14, 1946.

In addition to the grief caused by the loss of her child, my aunt was to lose her husband two months later on September 1, 1946.

Family history states that after a swim, he contracted an infectious viral disease that proved fatal. He died at the clinic on Rue de la Chine.

On the left, Annie and Lucien; on the right, Annie and Gérard

A Firer with Lucien on his lap, Jacky, Annie, Marie and William: summer 1945

Jean, Annie and Marie, I don't know the little girls with Jacky, Lucien and William - May or June 1945

My aunt Annie did not give up in the face of so much misfortune.

I think she must have found comfort in her family.

She continued to take her two children on holiday. My mother must have been helping her; here she is with Lucien and Jacky, probably in the Luxembourg Gardens.

Jean Firer's family.

Jean had arrived from Lubartow (in the province of Lublin) around 1930 with his mother and his brothers and sisters .

Jean's mother died in February 1932 and was buried in Bagneux.

His father died in Poland in 1915.

Her mother must have been pregnant since the last of their children was born in 1916.

He had five brothers and sisters, apparently all of whom came to Paris.

The eldest, Etla, born in 1889, married to Shrul Zylber, was deported in June 1942 to Auschwitz with her family, her husband and her two children: Joseph (6 years old) and Charles (14 years old) born in Paris;

the second Maurice, born in 1901, died in 1984;

The third David, born in 1909, died in 1985.

The fourth Berthe, born in 1914, died in 2004 and

The last Jankiel/Jacques, born in 1916, was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. He had left Paris in 1942 to take refuge in the unoccupied zone in Grenoble. One evening, on his way out, he was arrested and deported to Auschwitz.

The grave of Yankel Firer, who died in 1915, father of Jean in Lubartow in 1919/20.

At the top, his mother Chana Erengot, the eldest Etla on his right, David on his left,

From left to right: Yankel, Berthe and Jean.

Maurice is not in this photo

My mother attended the wedding of David Firer to Cecile Scharf.

This must have been in 1937.

The 3rd couple from the left: Annie and Jean.

Below the wedding photo are the Zylber couple and their two children, all deported in 1942.

Thank you to my cousin Lucien for all these documents and information.

A few years later, perhaps in 1948 or 1949, she met the man I always called my Uncle Sam. His name was Sam (Szmul Leyb) Zalcman (1908-1974), and he was from Radom. He liked to say he was Breton because of the town of Redon. He had a son (Jacques, 1936-?) and a daughter (Gabrielle, 1939-?) from a first marriage, whom I never met. He was divorced.

He volunteered as a machine gunner in June 1939 and during the Second World War was a prisoner of war in a stalag. He was liberated in May 1945 and returned to Paris at the end of May 1945. In 1970, he received the Volunteer Combatant's Cross.

My aunt Annie had to deal with supporting her family.

I went to the Parisian archives to consult the trade registers.

On June 1, 1949, Anna Leizerson, still residing at 343 rue des Pyrenées, widow Firer, declared a Limited Liability Company (Manufacture, purchase and sale of all women's clothing items), of which she is the manager, with an unspecified partner: " Anna aux vêtements féminins", located at 9 rue Simon Lefranc, Paris 4th arrondissement.

On January 23, 1951, Anna Firer moved her company "Aux Vetements féminins" from 14 rue Meslay in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris to the Place de la République. Around this time, she must have met Sam, since photos were taken in the summer with my mother, who was pregnant with me and Sam.

I suppose there was a second move a little later, with Sam at 62 Turbigo Street, where my aunt, her sons and Sam lived and worked.