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U.S. NEWS Saturday 14 april 2018

Friends separated by the Holocaust reunite in California

By JOHN ROGERS It was on a train to that
Associated Press death camp a few weeks
LOS ANGELES (AP) — When later that she saved her
Alice Gerstel bid an emo- son, pushing him toward
tional farewell to her fam- the door of the boxcar they
ily’s closest friends in Octo- were in and telling him to
ber 1941, she was hopeful jump. After the war he re-
she’d see “Little Simon” united with his father and
Gronowski again. And she eventually moved back
did — 76 years later and to the apartment where
half a world away from he grew up. He rented out
where they were separat- the other units and used
ed in Brussels. the money to pay for law
Gerstel and her Jewish school. He is a practicing
family had hidden in the attorney in Brussels.
Gronowskis’ home for near- Gerstel Weit’s family immi-
ly two weeks before her fa- grated to the United States,
ther sent word from France where she married, had
that he had reached a two sons and eventually
deal with a smuggler who settled in Los Angeles and
would get her, her siblings a career in real estate.
and their mother safely out Immediately after the war,
of Nazi-occupied Belgium. her family tried to locate
The Gronowskis, also Jew- In this Wednesday, April 11, 2018, photo, childhood Holocaust survivors Simon Gronowski and their friends. Gronowski
ish, decided to stay. They Alice Gerstel Weit exchange photographs they haven’t seen in decades, at the Los Angeles eventually wrote back to
hid for 18 months until the Holocaust Museum memorial. Gerstel Weit’s late older
Nazis came knocking at Associated Press brother Zoltan, telling him
the family’s door and put gian beach resort in 1939. her hand over Gronowski’s bound for Cuba. his sister and mother had
Simon, his sister and mother How it led an 11-year-old heart. Gronowski’s father be- died at Auschwitz and his
on a death train to Aus- boy to make one of the There was much hugging, lieved naively he and his father had since passed
chwitz. most daring escapes of the kissing and crying Wednes- family would be safe hiding away. For some reason,
“I thought the entire fam- war. How it put the other day as the two old friends in Brussels. Zoltan never told his family
ily was murdered. I had no family on a perilous journey held hands tightly while sit- “My father was not very “Little Simon” survived.
idea,” Gerstel (now Gerstel through occupied France ting outside on a museum conscious to tension. My She learned he was alive
Weit) said Wednesday, the that reads like a scene from patio to share memories father was not political. He six months ago when her
day after their tearful re- the film “Casablanca.” from a long-ago past. was a poet. He wrote in nephew searched her
union. She and her friend And, finally, how those It was a past that began six languages,” Gronowski maiden name online look-
clutched hands at the Los separate journeys culmi- idyllically before turning said, pausing to wipe away ing for more family history.
Angeles Museum of the Ho- nated three-quarters of nightmarish after the Nazis tears. He came across Gronows-
locaust as they recounted a century later in a joy- invaded Belgium in 1940 “And like so many of the ki’s 2002 memoir, “The Child
their story. ful, tear-streaked reunion and began rounding up families he remember in of the 20th Train,” in which
“You didn’t know that I in Los Angeles just before Jews. Brussels,” he continued in her family is mentioned
jumped off the train?” Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Gerstel Weit’s father, a dia- Dutch-accented English, prominently.
asked Gronowski, now 86. Commemoration Day. mond dealer with a wife “he cannot believe that in Gronowski says he be-
“No, no. I didn’t know “I didn’t recognize him at and four children, decided Europe of the 20th century, lieves Gerstel Weit’s brother
anything,” his 89-year-old all. I don’t see Little Simon,” to flee in 1941. He turned of that civilization, he can- was too distraught to say
friend replied. Gerstel Weit said Wednes- his diamonds into cash, not believe that Germany much about his family. His
The two will return to the day of her previous day’s bought nine visas that got can fall into barbarism.” 18-year-old sister, Ita, had
museum Sunday to re- reunion with the now-bald, his family and brother’s When the Nazis arrived, been Zoltan Gerstel’s girl-
count to visitors how the white-bearded man who family through Nazi-occu- Gronowski’s father was in friend in Belgium, and he
Holocaust ripped apart a sat next to her chuckling. pied France and to the a hospital. His wife quickly had professed his love for
pair of families that had “But he’s here. Little Simon French-controlled Moroc- lied, telling them he was her repeatedly in wartime
become fast friends after a is here,” she added, her can city of Casablanca. dead and sparing him from letters, including some she
chance meeting at a Bel- voice breaking as she put There they boarded a ship Auschwitz. never lived to see.q