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Reny Friedman

Reny thumb

Born: Heerlen, the Netherlands, 1937

Wartime experience: Hiding

Writing Partner: Ricki Birnbaum

Reny Friedman and her twin brother, Leo Salomon, were born in April 1937 in Heerlen, the Netherlands. When the Nazis started rounding up Jews, the Salomon family escaped to Belgium with the help of the underground.

The family hid in Brussels for a year and on a farm in Tremelo in the Ardennes Forest. Reny’s parents had heard that experiments were being performed on twins in the camps, and so they were especially afraid for their twin children. They arranged for Leo to be hidden in a monastery, while Reny was taken to hide in a convent. At the end of the war, Reny was reunited with her family, first with her father and brother, whom she didn’t recognize, and then with her mother, who had been a prisoner in Auschwitz. Although her brother chose to remain in the Netherlands, Reny immigrated to Canada in 1955, where she lived with relatives and worked a variety of jobs. In 1959, she married Henry Friedman, a survivor from Hungary, and together they raised a family. Reny’s parents eventually joined her in Canada in 1972. Reny Friedman lives in Toronto.

Escape from the Netherlands

The Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. At the end of 1941 or at the beginning of 1942, the Germans knocked on doors where Jews were living in Heerlen and gave people letters stating that on a certain date, a bus was coming to pick them up. The letters also said that each person was allowed a suitcase. I was almost five when I saw these buses. My mother told Leo and me that everyone on the buses was going on a trip and we waved to them as my mother pulled us along in our wagon. It was only after the war that my mother told us where the buses really went.

Separation

One day, my mother went to the market to shop for the woman she worked for, and when she returned the Gestapo were there. They had been searching the building. One of our own people, a Jewish person, was the snitch who gave up my mother. A Gestapo agent started to question my mother, asking, “Who are you?” and “What’s your name?” and “Are you married?” My mother told them that she was not married, but she was wearing her wedding band. There were old radiators in that house, and while they were questioning her, my mother backed against the wall near the radiator, pulled off her ring and dropped it behind the radiator. The Gestapo did not hear the wedding band drop because of their yelling. When my mother was asked where she lived, she gave them a fake address and said that she also sometimes lived with a friend. A Gestapo agent responded by saying, “Oh, you are one of those,” meaning that she was a prostitute. My mother did not agree or disagree. They kept yelling at her and said that if she did not tell the truth, they would search through the entire building. My mother did not want this to happen because her brother was downstairs and the Gestapo had obviously not found him in their initial search. She decided to admit that she was Jewish. The Gestapo were finally satisfied, and they took my mother to the camps.

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Reny (second from the right) at the convent. Belgium, circa 1943.

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Reny (second from the left) during a parade at the convent. Belgium, circa 1943.

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Reny’s necklace from the convent.

Difficult Reunions

I lived in the convent for a year and a half or two years, until my father came to get me when we were liberated in December 1944. The first time my father came to pick me up, I had chicken pox and so he had to come back. When I had chicken pox, the priest lent me his German shepherd dog as a companion because nobody else could come near me.

When my father came to pick me up once I was better, at first I did not want to go with him; I did not know who this man was. I do not have any recollection of when and how I stopped remembering my father and brother. When my father came to get me, I could not speak to him. I spoke French fluently, but I could no longer speak my own language, Dutch. I don’t know when I began to be able to speak French. My father spoke Dutch, German, Yiddish and Polish, but not French. The Mother Superior was the interpreter for my dad and me. I spoke to her, and she told my father what I had said. I told the Mother Superior to make my father promise to bring me back to the convent. I only agreed to go with him for a little while as a visit. He promised, but he never brought me back.

No memories of being taken to the convent have ever come back to me. Maybe, for my mental health, it would not be good to remember the event. It must have been so bad. Why would I want to stir that up now? So I let it rest there in the back of my mind, dormant.

Speak Up

I survived the war because of the nuns. I was grateful to the nuns and I am still grateful to the nuns. If I see nuns who are asking for donations, I give them some money. I will give them whatever I can afford because without them, who knows what would have happened. I never thought about whether I survived for a purpose, but I have three beautiful children and I give what I can to the grandchildren.

The most important thing the Holocaust took from me is my friends and family members whom I never got to know, but mostly my grandparents and uncles. The Holocaust has definitely affected my values. I can live with little.

I am most afraid of a lack of security, of not knowing what tomorrow might bring. That is really my biggest fear. The message or lesson I would give over to my grandchildren or future generations, in general, is what I have always said and what I said to the kids from the March of the Living: If you hear any comments against Jews, such as “Jews have money,” speak up. Do not be afraid to speak your mind because if you swallow everything, people will continue to do things against you. I also would say to live life to the fullest, because you do not know what tomorrow will bring. That is all I can wish for them. Those are my wishes for every child, big or small.