Speech by Denise Wolff, March 26, 1945

Seven-page speech by Denise Wolff (1909-2000) detailing life and agony in Nazi occupied France during World War II, her family's immigration to the United States and Louisville, Kentucky, in 1941, and news of the Holocaust.

Mss. A L668, Folder 8, Levy-Wolff Family Papers, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky

Mss. A L668 Folder 08 Item 01

3/26/1945It is indeed with great pleasure that I come hare today, and
I sincerely hope that my experiences and my impressions of my
native land will bring you some light and help you to understand
better the problems of the French people. For when this war will
be over, we will all live in much closer relationship with the
people of far-off countries than ever before.
Maybe to give you abetter understanding of what I am going to
say you ought to know that even though France is geographically smaller
than the state of Texas, it is nevertheless subdivided into pro
vinces whose characteristics and customs differ, and so do the accents
of the people.
I have lived in, visited, or associated with people from, all
the corners of Prance. I was born and raised in a small town in Alsa
with which you are all more familiar than you were a year ago—
Haguenau described a few weeks ago in the news as an important rail
center north of Strasbourg. Alsace at that time was a German
province. But most of the people were waiting hopefully for a re
union with Prance. I say most of them, for during the 48 years
of XXXXXXX occupation, naturally government employees, soldiers,
and others had come from Germany to live there and had mingled with
the population, so in this group you could find the pro-German ele
ment. Of the other Alsatians, many moved away from Alsace after
the war of 1870, to Prance or to the United States whose democratic
ideals were closer to their hearts than the German militaristic
government.
When I started school I was taught the German language and the
way to be a good German—but when I came home, we spoke French,
and all the theories of love for Germany which the teachers
tried so hard to impress on us were insignificant or worthless after
our parents' teaching of attachment to Prance. That is why I am
convinced that if the German youth has been such an important
element in the first victories of Hitler, the German parents
must be blamed for XX letting their children’s minds be misled
by this fanatic madman who was able to make a spy of each child
in the midst of his own family. (Eating butter)
Coming back to my German schooldays, my French first XXXXX
name worried my teachers very much, and they tried very hard
to convince me of the necessity of changing it, but their efforts
were in vain.
Another memory of those days is that of house inspection,
which we had to undergo several times during the last war. From
time to time my mother wrote to her brothers in the United States
through the Red Cross or through friends living in Switzerland.
Naturally she tried to tell them not to worry about us and that
we got enough food and so on. This was enough for the censor of
the letter to think we got extra food or we were hoarding, and
with sentries posted at the four corners of the block, a group
of Germans went through every nook and corner of our house, butt
strips.
always without any success.
Came summer 1918 and new hopes of liberation and out of the
family linen closet came a linen sheet. It was torn into 3 equal
strips One was kept at home and the two others went to the dyers.
the manager of which was a friend of oars and a French patriot.
That was our way of getting our tricolor ready and
it was XX hoisted long before the last German soldier
had left the town of the liberation was immense. We
restrictions, the bread was (so to say) not edible,
but we could stay at home all the time and XX only heard the
above all.
believe me
guns far off. Only visitors to Haguenau
who had lived in and fled from northern Prance and Luneville in the
Vosges Mountains, were our source of reports about German (not
-2-
Nazi at that time) cruelties. I knew a woman who never got well after
seeing her husband and 18-year-old daughter shot before her eyes by some
drunken soldiers. She spent XX 20 years in a sanitorium before sha died.
From 1920 to 1932 people began to live again in a normal manner.
Out of the ruins new houses were built. France had to struggle hard to
balance her economic life. Poincare, the Minister of Finance, was a
great statesman and saved France from inflation at that time.
But on the other side of the Rhine trouble was brewing again. And
as XXXXX soon as the German armies occupied the Left Bank again, we knew
that war was inevitable. Everybody went about his business as usual but
with a feeling of worry and uncertainty about the future.
Married in 1930 I made my home in Paris where I had often visited
before, but returned to Alsace for 2 months every summer with Francis
my older boy. In August, 1938, Hubert, my second son, was born in Stras
bourg and by the time I brought him home from the hospital, everybody
in France, and particularly in Alsace, became restless. Soldiers of the
reserve army were called back, fitted out and sent to the Maginot Line
only a few miles away. Mr. Wolff’s brother, just returned from Czecho
slovakia where he had participated in the world’s tournaments for fencing
told us how the Czechs feared an invasion of their homeland. This was
a war of XXX nerves, but how trying! I bid good-bye to my parents one
Wednesday morning at 6 o’clock, urging them to follow us if the danger
became greater, and this is how four-weeks-old Hubert started his refugee
life. We drove to Paris, our home, but for a short stay only. Mr. Wolff
went to seek a country home and after a couple of days, he found what we
thought would be ideal 3 miles away from the railroad, no factories or
military objectives within 8 miles. It was a little chateau surrounded
by a park XXXXX with huge trees, a big vegetable garden which could provide
the needs of the family and all kinds of XXXX fruit trees. Before we were
settled there, my husband was drafted, so I went with his parents and
younger brothers and awaited anxiously the outcome of all this. In the
meantime my parents had decided to leave their home and found refuge in
a nearby village XX inn. It was not so hard for them to leave home and
everything connected with it as it was for my 88-year-old grandmother,
an invalid, who had not gone farther than our front yard in 20 years.
AS you all know, after the famous Munich Agreement Hitler was supposed
to be satisfied and we all went back to our homes for a short year. In
August, 1939, we were all on the move again. Back to Fontaine we went.
Into the big home flocked all the members of the family. For my parents
I rented a primitive XX little farmhouse. Again my husband and his 4
brother were drafted and sent all over France, the youngest ones in
training, the oldest standing guard in front of the Maginot Line. Alsace
was completely evacuated. Those who could go by their own means, who
knew where to go, were fortunate, the others were jammed in freight trains,
XXXX were on most uncomfortable trips for several days. During the winter
of 1939-1940 my brother-in-law was freezing in the foxholes on the banks
of the Rhine 300 yardsfrom his home and couldn’t go there to get a blanket.
Strasbourg was declared an "open city." No soldier was allowed to enter,
to avoid a pretext for the Germans to shall the city. From Fontaine I
went to my XXXXXXXX home on several occasions for a couple of days at a
time to settle some business matters, and so I found myself there during
the night of May 9-10. An air raid alarm was signalled, but I stayed
quietly in my bed. Only the next morning when I went down for breakfast
did I hear the terrible news that every airport in Eastern France had
been effectively bombed during the night and that the German troops had
invaded Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. I rushed brack to my family in
Fontaine and from there we witnessed the greatest tragedy in French
history. With heavy hearts and great worries did we listen to the news
broadcast. XXXXX every hour, while outside in the yard about 50 soldiers
who were Quartered in the loft above our garage stood by anxiously.
News XX from our boys became more irregular as the advancing enemy armies
came closer. These soldiers I Just mentioned were part of the French army
reserve, XXX men between 30 and 40, about 300 of whom had been lodged in
Fontaines in haylofts and other unoccupied shelters, right when the war
started. Most of them hailed from the Luxembourg border and the Reims
area where the break-through occurred. Some of them who ware called back
from XX furloughs told us of the inhuman cruelty of the German dive-bombers
who were masters of the skies at that time. For example, one of them chose
for target a group of 20 kindergarten children Just leaving school and
machine-gunned them from the height of tree-tops, killing every one of them.
During the next few weeks the otherwise quiet main street of Fontaine became
animated with a pitiful crowd. Moving south came the cars from Belgium
loaded to capacitywith bedding and valuables, old men, women, and children,
the young men being all in the army. Those were the privileged ones;
their cars very often showed the marks of the machine-guns, and XXXX many
of their friends did not get this far. Later came the farmers on horse-
driven carts who had been on this miserable trek for 3 weeks when they
reached Fontaine. Some of them had a cow in the trailer, to provide milk
for the family, some chickens sometimes. They stopped overnight in farms
and at mealtimes we always fed one family or another. Their story was
one and the same; having suffered indescribable hardships during the last
war, they wanted by all means to get out of the path of the German army.
They showed their shell-tornclothes. One woman while feeding her baby told
us how she had left another of her children seriously wounded in a hospital
on the way. Bv that time all boys over 14 were ordered to leave northern
France to avoid being sent as slave laborers to Germany. Thousands of them
swarmed on bicycles by our home, having covered 500 miles or more sometimes.
I remember one 16-year-old youth from Tourcoings who rested a while in our
yard and told us how he was the only one of a group of 10 who had come this
far, the others having been killed or wounded by bombs and machine-guns
from low-flying planes. I could go on and on telling you those people’s
sad stories. When around June 9th the enemy was n ot more than 70 miles
away, when the German planes ware constantly overhead, when they bombed the
airport in Chartres XXXX only 8 miles away, we made the decision to pack
the indispensables and to leave the next day. Each one of us went to his
room to assemble his belongings. Francis, Just 9 years XXX old, came to me
in tears not knowing what to do with his canaries. We decided to take them
to a woman who lived at the other end of the village and who had helped us
around the house. As he walked there with the bird-cage in his hand, the
first of a group of cars stopped him and the occupants asked the way.
Great was his surprise when he recognised some very good friends of ours.
They had fled their country home about 40 miles northeast of Fontaine
24 hours before and had spent all night in their cars trying to get over
a bridge across the Seine, some of which spans had already been blown up
by the retreating French army. They came four cars full, our friends;
a Parisian lawyer, his wife, and his 3 children; and 3 farmers' wives
with their children. The men had stayed at home to attend to 300 head
of cattle. They were all exhausted and hungry and we gave them dinner
and prepared beds. And with them we left Fontaine the next morning.
We decided to go to Limoges where my sister-in-law had moved with her
mother, refugees from Strasbourg. Once more we were lucky. My father-in-law
who drove the car, through side-roads instead of highways, got us there by
nightfall. Later on we met friends who were a whole week on their way
on the same highways which were crowded withall kinds of cars. Everything
which had wheels was used to move people south, but many people had to
make detours and took days to find a bridge intact, the French having blown
up the bridges, trying to make a stand at the Loire. When we reached
Limoges it was terrible. The streets, the public places, everywhere
hundreds and hundreds cars of refugees. The city was full to capacity
and still they came streaming in. Hundreds of them slept in improvised
shelters. Picture shows, cafes, schools were used as dormitories. At
my sister-in-law( s little 3-room apartment we doubled up and with mattresses
on the floor we were better off than most of these late-comers. We wre there
for about a week, very crowded, hearthsick and not knowing wehre to go,with
no news from my husband and his brothers; when finally we went around the
country and found a few rooms in an old chateau nearby. We felt ourselves
very lucky. We improvised a little kitchen in a closet in if I would give
you the details about it you would not believe that it was possible under
those conditions to prpare meals for a family of seven; ther was no water
in this old chateau, every drop used for any purpose had to be carried in
pails from a well about 100 yards down the hill. The closest grocery store
was three and a half miles away throu wodded hills. Gasoline was unobtainable
for in the last four weeks the whole economic system in France had collapsed.
It was I who went to the village for food, the others membres of the family
being unable to under take such a hike and in my knapsack I braught home
bred and staples, which were still to be obtained. It was there, at the
Chateau de la Grille re, that we heard how France had given up the fight,
cruched by the unrolling german armored divisions and air-forces, which
seeemed to come out of every where. I can’t finf words to describe to you
our state of mind during the following weeks, being strandet there, in
a strange part of the country,comparable to the Kentucky hills, most
uncomfortably among a group af other refugies, without news neither from
our soldiers,nor mv parents. Frtunately through a member of our family who
lived in the southern part of France, we could again get in touch withe
some of our dear ones. After these long weeks af waiting I such got word
from my husband, who had been slightly wounded. He was taken to a hospital
and his wounds attended. But during the second night, he was there among
the groaning of the seriously, unattended wounded and heard the rumble of
some German tanks. He could not stand the idea of being caught inthis
trap, got out of his bed, put on his clothes, his trousers in shreds,
sneaked out of the hospital, which was easy since most of the staff had
gone away, and with a cane went into the nearby forest. At dawn he stopped
an ambulance which took him south for a hundred miles. When they ran out
of gas a passing truck XXXXXX gave him a lift to Lyon where ha was put
again with a group of soldiers newly outfitted, and sent back to fight in
an Alpine pass. He was there when the armistice was signed and with God’s
help ge never had to endure the hardships which two of his brothers had
to undergo. Both were made prisoners during this pitiful retreat; after
4 and 6 months, respectively, they both braved the danger of escaping
from the camps out of occupied France into what was then called Free France.
We had stayed in that chateau for 2 1/2 months, but rumors spread continu
ously that the Germans were taking this territory over, too. In Limoges
you could frequently see the German officers of the Armistice Commission.
So we decided to move farther south and went to Beziers XXX where my family
had arrived 2 weeks before. This was as far away from the Germans as we
could go. We also thought of this city of 60,000 as a winter haven, for
it is situated 5 miles from the Mediterranean Sea and benefits from its
mild climate. During the 8 months we stayed in Beziers, my husband and
his brothers made frequent trips to the American Consulate in Marseille.
Our papers had been filed in July, 1940, in Washington and on January 21#
1941, the whole family was issued the necessary visas for the United
States. On that .day we could make reservations for the boat which was
to bring us over here. 4 months later
Our stay in Beziers was another dark chapter in our family history.
The food situation went from bad to worse. Everything was rationed:
meat, coffee ersata, cheese, bread, sugar, rice, noodles, milk onlyfor
the children, soap. We want sometimes for weeks without potatoes. I
stood in lines for hours sometimes to get a pound of fish, one pound
with my eleven ration books, for all our soldiers had come back in the
meantime; 2 eggs, once a month. Like a gift from heaven came twice a
month the distribution XX of food given refugees and families of war
prisoners in Beziers by the American Red Cross. Those distributions of
food meant more to us than we can express— food which was unobtainable
without ration points which helped us to stretch our poor rations.
Raisins, prunes, syrup, canned milk, noodles, and soap were considered
life savers. The American Red Cross also sent vitamins to be given to
the school children. But all 'this was toogood to last. The Germans
took advantage of these relief shipments destined for the French people
and sent them to Germany with all the rest of the French supplies. So
the American Red Cross had to stop this act of mercy. But I am glad that
on this occasion I am able to say to you, you who through your generous
donations made this splendid relief work possible, thank XXX you in my
name and in the name of my French friends. By the way, I can assure you
that since I am in this country it is certainly more enjoyable to give to
the Red Cross than to be on the receiving end, and to live under the
conditions I want through while in Beziers and before. While in that city
Mr. Wolff's mother became seriously ill and after 4 months of sickness
passed away. I don’t want to go into deep details but would like to make
you realize all the hardships and discomforts we went through during that
period in vary crowded living conditions, getting up from meals with
unfilled stomachs and shattered nerves. Even though we had our American
visas and our boat reservations had been bought by our uncle here, we still
were not sure if we would be able to leave France. The 5 brothers filed
an appeal to Marshall Petain for a permit to leave the country which was
granted to them a few weeks later. But we got no news about the transit
visas XXXX for Spain and Portugal. Days, weeks, and months passed. Our
boat, the Excambion, was sailing from Lisbon the 2nd of May. We were
Required to be there four days before that day. Our trip through France
and Spain was going to take another 3 days. It was the very last possible
(fay, after exchanging cables with Portugal, that we got those transit
visas. The Spanish Consulate gave us 10 of the 12 applied for. With
regard to an agreement,the Spanish government had with Germany, they
would not grant permits to the younger Wolff brothers who were not yet
30 years of age. We had prepared ourselves to leave on a few hours notice
and the big trunks had been sent away after we got the Portugese visas.
That is how we landed here with those 2 boys’ heavy winter garments which
they missed so badly afterwards. Our trip through Spain and Portugal was
as smooth as could be expectedwhen a family group of 10 underthis nervous
tension of the last few weeks and the general excitement of the journey
gets under way. There was, of course, a checking of the 24 trunks each
time we had to change trains and at the customs inspections. Also the
excitement of smuggling through a little extra money beside the $50 per
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person to which we ware entitled. But finally we made it, got to Lisbon,
all 10 of us, and for the first time in a year XXXXX we ate until we were
not hungry any more. We walked through the streets looking at the windows
full of groceries, the pastry shops with rich cakes like children in the
toy department of a store in December. It was hard to believe that some
countries still could live as in pre-war days. Our ocean trip took 10
days and on the morning of May 12 everybody was on deck early. Everybody
wanted to see the statue of liberty. Most of the passengers were refugees
from all over Europe or repatriated AmericanXX citizens. Two passengers
of special interest were ex-King Carol of Rumania and Mme. Lupescu. And
the former Ambassador of Argentina To Rome who came back to his country
to be named Foreign Minister, pro-Fascist, if you can remember. Impa
tiently we awaited our turn to be checked out and at last we felt secure
on this blessed American soil. Even though my subject for this talk is
France and my personal experiences there, I think it would be incomplete
if I did not give you my impressions of this country. Amazed anddeeply
impressed were we during our short stay in New York. The gigantic pro
portions of everything, the speed and the efficiency, the modern methods,
streamlined buildings, and the geometric planning of the city. We could
not stop wondering. The youth and strength of New York compared to Paris
where every corner brings back memories of the past. So different one
from another.
But it was only in Louisville that we were to meet the American
people. Those we met in New York were old friends and relatives who
wanted to make things pleasant for us. That was our idea. But here in
Louisville we would be the strangers, the newcomers with a foreign accent
and so on. Great was our surprise. The welcome we got in our adopted
home the first day and the first week was wonderful, and in the coming
weeks and months we really got the feeling that we belong hare and that
we are part of the neighborhood and considered so by the people all over
the block.
Never will I forget, that when I had hardly stepped into the home,
where I was goin g to live from now on, my next door neighbor stood at
my door with flowers and smile and offering her help in any way I would
need it. And this was only the beginning.
From down and up and accross the street everybody practiced in the most
wonderfull way the good neighbor policy. Only somebody who has been pushed
around as much as we had been in the last years can realise how much this
meant to us. "Come in" were significantly enough the first english words
little 3 year old Hubert had been taught by his new friends . If I had time
I would give you many examples of friendliness and understanding, which
helped us so much tu adapt ourselves to this American way of life.
I am glad that today I am able to say to you. express my thanks for you
But while we had reached this heaven of liberty bur thaughts went always
back to thosewhom we had left behind, parents,brothers, sisters and so many
friends.
At first the news from there came slowly and irregularly and for 2 1/2
years we were com;pletely cut off from France. You can hardly imagine the
worries and the uncertainty about our dear ones and our friends xxx still
over there and how justified were these worries. How many have had to
untergo those inhuman treatements of the Gestapo. God only know.
But from the letters and cards, which come in now a great number of
victims have never been heard of. Among them one of Mr. Wolff’s brothers,
a young Doctor arrested and condemned for underground activities, imprisoned
in France for months and the chosen as hostage after a time bomb explosion
in a Paris Movie house, along with 3o others poor innocents sent to Germany
or elsewhere in 1942 and never we heard of him since. In my mail last week
in one day, from different french friends I heard of one’s husband killed
-7 -
by the Gestapo, another one's husband arrested and presumed to be in
Germany, without news from him, 10 members of one girl's family deported
old and young,never heard of, a young mother separated from her two
children one only a few weeks old, she did not survive this horrible
tragedy. The children were cared for by good french people, until some
member of her family could take care of them. One of our cousins,
the one I mentioned previously, who helped us to find each other in July 40
was murdered by the Gestapo in her own bathroom. Her husband escaped
by jumping out of a second floor window and their 7 year old little girl
was saved by neighbors. Then hunted by the merciless Gestapo and also
the Vichy Militia they lived hidden in Farmhouses. A reward of 5000 frs
was pledged to each person who would denounce a Jew or a patriot xx to
the barbarians. Many a life has been savedby those french farmers
village priests, who had formed a chain and ledthose pursued and
terror strickens, probable victims,to safer hiding places.
Greater tragedies have never been lived through before in history.
Ruthless murder, rape, plunder, sadisme and scientific tortures were
comon place. In Alsace the foe was particularly mean, because of the
stuborness of those people. One recent letter tells me all the young
men there have been deported for slave labor or forced draft in the
German Army, or killed. 0Ne spot in the Vosges Mountains where I used to
spend some wonderfull winter week ends, The Struthof, has become the
most sinistre spot; A concentration camp and death factory was estab
lished there. You read in the press what happened there. In Haguenau,
my hometown, after the fighting of last January, one house only out of
every 50 was still standin. The war front map of last sundays paper
showed me that the corner north of my home-town Haguenau had been in
German hands untl then and fighting was still going on there. I cannot
give you a coplete report about all the news I got from my home folks.
But every one of them tell us: With Gods help we are still alive,we
were all candidats for deportation, you cannot realize the horribles
anxietys we went trough these last three vears.
The enthousiasme of the liberation, the cheerin of the yanks,
even tough conditions have not changed yet, food being as scarce as
before because of a co;lete breakdown of the transportation system, they
are happy to be free, Each man, each woman and ech child will never
forget the price of Freedom again. Tell it to your American friends,
they write to me, that they will never again permit such a thing to
happen. Being far away and not realizing what happened here, they might
forget, that twice in one generation, the boches put the torch to the
world. If there is a Justice those mass murderers must pay for their
crimes and must be made harmless, so that our children and all the
childred over the world, may grow up in peace and become citizens of
a future world civilisation of which we will be able to be proud of.