(communicated with permission to post by M. Claude WATTEEL, February 2021)
Jewish immigrants from Poland were among the earliest victims of the Shoah from the Somme. Natan FAKTOR, Jacob BIRENBAUM, Ettel BIRENBAUM née SANDIG, and Georgette BIRENBAUM (this last a six year old child), and Michel BIRNBAUM were some of these unfortunates. So, too, were Chana and Thérèse GRINFEDER. Though all had resided in Amiens, they were arrested while living in PARIS or environs and were deported to Auschwitz, in most cases from Drancy (See List of Deportations) Zalman REDLICH and his wife Gitla REDLICH née TCHAPNIK, Abraham LEWENBERG and his wife Sarah LEWENBERG, née FAKTOR on the other hand were arrested in AMIENS in the wake of the regional rafle which followed Vel d'Hiv roundup in Paris.
In his path breaking study D’Amiens á Auschwitz : la tragédie des Redlich (self-published, 2nd ed., February , 2016), the historian Claude WATTEEL has emphasized the ties that existed among certain of these families. Michel BIRNBAUM and Zalman REDLICH both came from KOSZYCE, a small town ("shtetl" in Yiddish) in Poland and were friends and witnesses at each other's marriages.
As an outgrowth of his research, M. WATTEEL contacted Esther BIRNBAUM, née SYLBERWASSER. daughter-in-law of Michel BIRNBAUM, mentioned above, and Ms BIRNBAUM shared these photographs and a scan of the postcard/letter sent by Michel BIRNBAUM from Drancy on the eve of his departure to Auschwitz to his wife Dvora/”Dora” and son Samuel Victor. The photos depict 1) a wedding grouping at the marriage of Michel and Dvora in AMIENS in 1935, and 2) Michel, Dvora, and Samuel Victor wearing yellow stars in June 1942, most likely in Paris.
In the wedding picture, as M. WATTEEL has pointed out, the man, woman, and boy at the far left of the photo at the end of each row, can be identified based on the photo/fiches in the exhibit “Who is a Jew?” as Abraham and Sarah LEWENBERG, née FAKTOR, she a sister of the bride, and their son Paul LEWENBERG, born in Amiens in 1930. Paul was saved though his parents were deported. I think that the person to the right of Dvora in the wedding photo might well be her brother Natan FAKTOR, subsequently deported in March 1942 with the first convoy from France. It is not unreasonable to think that Jacob BIRENBAUM, another immigrant from KOSZYCE, and his wife Ettel (also later deported as was their daughter Georgette born in Amiens in 1936) might figure in this photo as well, based on other documentation attesting their presence in Amiens at this time.
How had Dvora and Victor, shown in Paris with yellow stars, been able to escape when Michel BIRNBAUM was arrested?
The Memorial Plaque to the Martyrs of Deportation, erected in the synagogue of Amiens in 1948, omits mention (as it also does for the “Refugees from the East”) of Natan FAKTOR, Jacob BIRENBAUM, Ettel BIRENBAUM, Georgette Paulette BIRENBAUM, and Michel BIRENBAUM. Nor are they mentioned on the list of deportees drawn up by Lucien AARON. They had apparently left Amiens before the Compulsory Registration in September/October 1940. We need to understand at what point they left Amiens and why. Their addresses at the time of their arrests in Paris are sometimes known, but questions remain.