She was born on July 1, 1918 in Hîncești, Romania.
Her parents, Idel and Paia Steinberg, gave her the name “Hala”. She had an elder sister and an elder brother – Samuel.
In the mid-1930s, antisemitism made it dangerous for them to stay in Romania.
Hala followed her brother and sister to France. She began calling herself “Claire.”
They built a new life for themselves in Toulouse.
But in those days, Jews were not safe from attack anywhere in Europe.
In 1940, the German Wehrmacht invaded France and occupied the north of the country.
The Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazis.
Claire’s older sister was active in the Résistance – she was arrested in 1944.
Claire tried to liberate her sister. But the Gestapo arrested her, too.
Claire had two brooches with her.
They were taken away from her.
The Gestapo did not know that Claire was Jewish.
That saved her life.
After three months imprisonment in Toulouse, Claire was deported to the German Reich via the Compiègne transit camp.
Three days
on a train.
She arrived at Ravensbrück concentration camp on February 3, 1944.
She was given prisoner number 27979 – her name no longer had any importance.
Four months later, Claire was transferred to the Hanover-Limmer
sub-camp.
She had to perform forced labor there until shortly before the end of the war in 1945.
Claire probably had to make
“people’s gas masks.”
In the summer of 1944, the Allies were advancing.
And the Nazis began to clear the concentration camps.
The SS sent hundreds of thousands of people on death marches.
Claire and the other women from the camp too.
They had to walk over 60 kilometers from Hanover-Limmer to Bergen-Belsen.
Those who were too weak to go on were shot.
Those who survived arrived at
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp two days later to die.
The British army reached the camp a week later and
liberated 53.000 people.
But for many, help came too late.
Claire had
typhus too.
She survived.
She returned to France in May 1945.
She met Mejlach “Michel” Wajnapel.
He, too, had survived the Holocaust.
They got married on December 18, 1948, in Boulogne-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris.
The couple had two sons and built a new life together.
Her brother Samuel had been
deported to Auschwitz.
Claire saw him just once more – in a documentary film that included footage from Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp.
By that time, he had already been dead for years.
None of
the family
talked about
the past.
Claire and Mejlach’s children hardly knew anything about the traumatic experiences their parents had lived through.
Years later,
two mementoes
found their way
back home.
The Allies recovered Claire’s brooches in 1945. After a long and circuitous journey, they ended up at the Arolsen Archives.
The aim of the #StolenMemory campaign is to return stolen mementoes to the families of victims of Nazi persecution. Eventually, the team at the Arolsen Archives managed to make contact with Claire’s sons and give them the brooches their mother had been wearing when she was arrested.
Our website can tell you more about the work we do. And about how you can help us to keep memories and keep history alive.
Arolsen Archives