Klein FAMILY STORY
May 1937 - Rosel Klein was born the third daughter to Lotte and Josef Klein in Berlin, Germany.
She and her two older sisters - Ruth and Eva; her mother and father; and maternal grandmother - Frieda Silberstein; lived together at 4 Rosenthaler Strasse, one of Berlin’s longest and most prolific streets.
Her father - Josef - was a shoemaker. Her mother - Lotte - a homemaker.
Although they were strongly connected and rooted in their Judaic traditions, they lived an assimilated life wherein they were accepted and a part of the greater Berlin community.
Parents: Josef & Lotte Klein. Berlin, 1931
November 1938 - their lives were forever changed with 'Kristalnacht', the Night of Broken Glass. Josef's business was vandalized and destroyed. Jewish children were forbidden from attending local schools. All Jews were mandated to wear yellow stars.
December 1938 - the entire Klein family fled to Brussels, Belgium.
In Brussels - they lived quietly and in peace for 10 months.
Ruth - the eldest - attended public school.
Josef found work.
Lotte got pregnant.
10 May 1940 - Germany invaded Belgium.
11 May 1940 - In hopes to once again evade the Nazis, The Klein family fled to Lille in the south of France. Rail travel was impossible. They walked the 70+ miles. By the time they arrived, the Nazis had already invaded.
Hoping only to survive - they found a small apartment. Their father found work. Their mother got sick with tuberculosis and was sent to a sanitorium. Without anyone to care for them, the girls days were spent hidden in a Carmelite Convent.
Lotte and Ruth - Berlin,1933
June 1940 - their mother - Lotte - died of turberculosis. There was no proper funeral or burial. Her body’s remains were cast into an mass ossuary.
The family returned to Brussels. The girls were placed in L'Home des Enfants Assistes where their father visited regularly.
12 December 1942 - their father - Josef - was arrested.
15 January 1943 - Josef Klein was deported to Auschwitz on Transport XIX, #119. He did not survive.
Ruth, Rosel, Eva - Berlin, 1938
April thru August 1943 - the girls were relocated to a Jewish orphanage. Soon thereafter they were rounded up and taken to the basement of the Gestapo headquarters.
Most who were there were deported on various transports to Auschwitz and other death camps. They were placed on a truck that took them to Malines in Belgium - a designated interim camp from which the children would be deported to Auschwitz.
They spent 6 weeks there, awaiting their assigned transport #XXIIA under the numbers 203 (Ruth), 204 (Eva), 205 (Rosel).
16 September 1943 - As luck would have it, and for reasons unknown to them, all three girls were liberated from Malines. While others boarded their assigned transports, they were left standing at the gate.
Again - a truck picked them up. They were taken to Wesembeek - another interim stop under Nazi control where children under the age of 15 were held.
March 1944 - the deportation of the children began. Due to secret undercover connections with the Jewish Defense Committee, instead of deportation to the camps, the girls were transported to a convent in Sugny, Belgium.
They were forced to change their names from Klein to Kleen. Ruth took on the name Simone. Eva became Eve. And Rosel became Rose.
August 1944 - Sugny was liberated by the Americans.
December 1944 - the three girls were returned to Wesembeek which was no longer controlled by the Germans, but what had become a holding place for those children who had no one and nothing else. They remained there for almost 2 years.
Simone Kleen (Ruth Klein), Eve Kleen (Eva Klein), Rose Kleen (Rosel Klein - Sugny 1944
Ruth Klein - Wesembeek 1945
Eva Klein - Wesembeek 1945
Rosel Klein - Wesembeek 1945
18 September 1946 - the girls were relocated to Auderghem in Brussels. They lived in an orthodox Jewish home for displaced and orphaned children run by Dr. & Mme. Rothschild.
The war had ended. They returned to school. They laughed. They played. They were free and safe.
They were orphans. Without parents. Without homes.
December 1947 - along with thousands of other orphaned children - they left their past lives behind, and boarded a boat that took them across the English channel to Southampton, England.
4 January 1948 - sponsored by the War Orphans Act and Canadian Jewish Congress - the three girls set sail aboard the Acquitania, taking them from England to Canada. Five long and seasick days later, they landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
12 January 1948 - they arrived in Toronto where the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society (JIAS) - helped them find new homes.
Ruth, Eva and Rosel - January 13, 1948
(photo: Toronto Star)
The girls were separated and adopted by three different families.
They married. Between them - they had 8 children, and then 18 grandchildren, who are now having children of their own.