Holocaust Remembrance Day

Rachel Goldman Miller
Speaks to Dispel Hate

January 29, 2019
Headquarters

1640 South Lindbergh
St. Louis, MO 63131

Forty-two thousand (42,000) slave labor camps, ghettos or
extermination camps were operated under the direction of

German Führer Adolf Hitler.
Six million Jews were methodically murdered, as well as hundreds

of thousands of Roma, homosexuals, disabled people, political
opponents and other victims.

“For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do
nothing.”

- Simon Wiesenthal

The mission of The Hannah Ida Urman Foundation is to
remember and learn about the innocent victims tortured and

murdered by Hitler’s regime.
We believe that Holocaust educational programs bridge social
and religious divides and enables communities to bond together,
strengthening their commitment to combat anti-Semitism and

prevent future genocides.

Biography - Rachel Miler

I was born in Paris in 1933, Rachel Goldman, and was one
of four children. My father had moved from Warsaw to escape
pronounced anti-Semitism in Poland. He thought Paris would be
a safe haven to raise a family, where he had a brother and sister.
I recall we were a happy family in Paris before the German
invasion. We were a singing family -- each Saturday night we
would sing with my uncle's family.

In August 1941, my father and uncle were taken to
Drancy internment camp outside Paris. When my mother went
to visit my father in December in the hospital there, he died in
her arms. She later learned he was used as a Guinea pig to test
drugs to be used for killing purposes. My uncle suffered the
same death.

I tried to lead a normal life by going to school like other
children. However, in 1942, my mother sent me to summer
camp outside of Paris. She said that I should tell people my name
was “Christine”, and do not tell anyone that you are Jewish. My
mother, sister Sabine, and brother Henri were soon taken by the
authorities. My brother Adolphe ran away to join the French
Resistance. Life in Paris continued to deteriorate, and my aunt
took me to an orphanage in 1944. Of the 60 children, three had
parents come back for them.

Many years later I learned that after the round up in
Paris, my mother, Sabine and Henri were taken to Auschwitz and
killed. In total, 93 people in my family were killed.

Rachel is the widow of Milton Miller, the mother of two
children and a grandmother of two. In addition to the Holocaust,
she has survived breast cancer, a crippling illness that kept her in
a wheel chair for 12 years, and the death of her son Mark in 1992
-- she mourns his passing each day.



Occupied France

The history of the concentration camps in France is a very difficult
and sensitive subject. Widely known facilities are Gurs, Noe, and
Drancy.

The camp of Drancy was a transit camp located not far from
Paris. Like many other detention centers throughout France,
Drancy was created by the Vichy government of Philippe Pétain in
1941 and was under the control of the French police until July 3,
1943 when Nazi Germany took day-to-day control as part of their
plans for “mass exterminations”. The camp was opened after a
roundup in Paris of Jews in August, 1941, in which over 4,000 Jews
were arrested. The French police carried out additional roundups
of Jews throughout the war. The conditions of life were extremely
difficult, due to lack of personal and ordinary human needs,
inadequate food, unsanitary conditions, and overcrowding.

The camp at Drancy was in a multi-story complex designed to
hold 700 people, but at its peak in it held more than 7,000. There
is documented evidence and testimony recounting the brutality of
the French guards in Drancy and the brutal conditions imposed on
the people including the small children who, upon their arrival,
were immediately separated from their parents. It is to Drancy
that SS First Lieutenant Klaus Barbie transported Jewish children
that he captured in a raid of a children’s home, before deporting
them to Auschwitz, where they were all killed. In December 1941,
40 prisoners from Drancy were executed in retaliation for a
French attack on German police officers.

In addition to mass extermination, proof exists that more than
3,000 prisoners died in the French camps from lack of medical
care or starvation. During the nights of July 16 and July 17, 1942,
an incident occurred, which is now called “La Rafle du Vel d’Hiv”
(The Great Raid of the Vel d’Hiv) - the Velodrome d’Hiver was a
stadium in Paris designed for bike races.
Continued on next page

Continued from previous page

(After the war, the French destroyed the stadium). This police
operation had been organized after several discussions between the
government of Petain and the Nazi occupation administration. The
code name of this operation was “Vent Printanier” (Spring Wind) and
all the arrests were made by the French police under the control of
French police officials. Originally, only the Jews who were older than
age 16 had to be arrested. It was under the proposal of Prime
Minister Laval that all the children were arrested.

More than 12,800 (3,031 men, 5,802 women and 4,051 children
aged between 2 and 12) were transferred to the Velodrome d’Hiver.
The children were kept there for 5 miserable days without any food
or medical care and then they were transferred to Drancy, Beaune-la-
Rolande or Pithiviers. The children were separated from their parents
by the French police immediately after their arrival in Drancy. The
parents were transported to Auschwitz and gassed. The children
stayed in Drancy, sometimes for weeks, without proper care or
adequate food. Several babies and very young children died in Drancy
due to the lack of care and the brutality of the French guards. Finally,
they were all transported to Auschwitz and gassed upon their arrival.
More than 6,000 Jewish children from all the regions of France were
arrested and transported to their deaths between July 17 and
September 30, 1942.

For more than 40 years, the French Government refused to admit
the responsibility of the regime of Petain and the French police in the
deportation of the French Jews. However, on July 16, 1995, president
Jacques Chirac, in a speech, recognized the responsibility of the
French State, and in particular of the French police which organized
the July 1942 “La Rafle du Vel d’Hiv”, for seconding the “criminal folly
of the occupying country”.

The above was compiled by Jeffrey Cymbler
Sources:
The Forgotten Camps



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The Story of a Holocaust Survivor,
who found himself in sharing
his tragic story with 1000s

Ben’s tragic storyoisf csotu-aduetnhtos raenddboythheisrsdear friend Mark
Leach. You can ordewrhhoisesmtobrryaacelodnhgimwith a DVD that

Ben made honoring his momπat this web site:

https://www.haTnhnaanhkfsotuonSdt.eovregn/sSilpeinetl-bfeorg-sixty-years
Marci Rosenberg

Michael Staenberg and
All with The Holocaust Museum
and Learning Center In St. Louis, MO

Ben’s tragic story is co-authored by his dear friend Mark
Leach. You can order his story along with a DVD that
Ben made honoring his mom at this web site:
https://www.hannahfound.org/silent-for-sixty-years

Thank you to Mrs. Miller
for the courage to tell her story

Thank you to the
St. Louis County Public Library
for sponsoring this program and
supporting Holocaust education

Thank you to All those who
took the time to come out and hear

Mrs. Miller’s life story

Thank you to our Generous Sponsors
for their Support

Ardell Burchard Lifestyles
PSKids LLC

Saint Louis Polonia
Soldiers Memorial Museum

St. Louis County Library

Visit the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center
in St. Louis

12 Millstone Campus Drive
St. Louis, MO 63146
314-432-0020
www.hmlc.org

Ben Fainer, of Blessed Memory, photographed at the
Holocaust Museum & Learning Center in St. Louis - 2013

The Hannah Ida Urman Foundation is
tax exempt by the IRS under 501(c)(3)

Tax ID 82-1305059