Both had immigrated to France from Warsaw, Poland in the late s. Due to family hardships, five-year-old Rose-Helene was sent to live in a Jewish boarding house where she attended public school nearby. During her brief visits home, Rose-Helene often overheard her mother talking about the imminent war with Germany.
In May , Germany invaded France. As the German army approached Paris, hundreds of thousands of people fled to the countryside. Sarah gave the refugees passing through Savigny-sur-Braye what food and water she could spare.
When Rivka came to visit, she was wounded in the foot during a bombing. She returned to Paris to seek medical treatment, taking Rose-Helene with her. Her grandmother and cousin later followed. After the invasion, France was divided into two main zones: the north and Atlantic coast of France occupied by the Germans, including Paris; and the south of France which was unoccupied.
A new collaborationist government known as Vichy France governed the country. Both the German occupiers and the government of Vichy France issued restrictions on Jews. In October , Vichy France instituted antisemitic legislation , defining Jews by race. In June , the Germans and their French collaborators began carrying out the systematic roundups and deportations of Jews from France to killing centers in German-occupied Poland, mostly to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
That same month, Jews in the occupied zone of France were required to wear a yellow Star of David on their garments. It became unsafe for Rose-Helene to attend school, as Jewish children were being arrested while in class and deported with their families. Rivka hid, obtained false identification papers, and then fled to unoccupied southern France after warning her family.
