Rosette Teitel
Holocaust Survivor, France
I was born in France in 1939, just before the official outbreak of World War II. When I was two and a half, I fell ill with diphtheria and had to be hospitalized in isolation for three months. Because of the war, my family was constantly on the move, and food was always rationed. They decided that the best chance for me to recover properly was to send me to a farm in the French countryside, where I could breathe fresh air, eat healthy food, and regain my strength.
The arrangement they found was with the R family who were paid to host me, but they didn’t really care about me. What mattered to them was the money. I struggled to fit in on the farm. I was lonely and cried all the time. I didn’t realize it then, but as an adult, I understand why people wouldn’t want to be around a little girl who was always crying.
The R family made good money selling the food and milk they produced. I remember one day watching them fill bottles of milk and then adding water to them. It seemed strange, but I didn’t say anything. I never said anything to them, about anything. After that day, they didn’t want me around the house anymore and started sending me out to the fields to “watch the cows.”
I quickly realized that cows don’t really need watching. So I’d spend hours lying in the grass, watching clouds drift by, or making bracelets and necklaces out of clover flowers. Looking back, all I wanted was to survive each day.
I didn’t think for myself or speak up. To the R family, I felt that I was nothing more than a worm they were paid to care for. I had clean clothes and food to eat, but never love or affection – the two ingredients every child needs most.
I had a lonely childhood, but I learned something important:
That I could survive, no matter what. At the time, I took that for granted, but it turned out to be a source of strength that carried me through life.
I never sucked my thumb, but I did suck on a handkerchief. Years later, when I was older, I asked my mother why. She told me that when I was a baby and the air raids began, we would hide in the basement of our building. People were instructed to keep an empty metal container near their door, something they could grab on their way out. That way, if they were ever trapped under rubble for days, they could use it to drink their own urine which is sterile and lessen the pangs of thirst.My mother had taught me to suck on my cloth diaper, so that if we were ever trapped,
I could survive by sucking liquid. even if it was urine – from the fabric.
Madame R once told me I shouldn’t suck my handkerchief. She said if I stopped, she would give me two coins. I believed her, and she gave them to me. I was so proud. I felt that I had managed to achieve something on my own. She placed the coins in an egg cup and put it on the top shelf of the cupboard. Later, her teenage son, who was about sixteen, told me he knew I’d been promised those coins.
He took down the cup and showed me that it was empty. The coins were gone. At that moment, something inside me broke. I felt betrayed, small, and foolish for believing. It took me many years to rebuild even the smallest sense of trust in people.
Years later, when I was ten, I was diagnosed with lordosis – an exaggerated curve in the lower spine and scoliosis – an exaggerated curve of the spine. For seven years during my adolescence, I had to wear a heavy metal brace to straighten my spine back to normal.
On the farm, I attended a girls’ school, though there weren’t many girls there to begin with. In the countryside at that time, people believed girls only needed to read, write, and do simple arithmetic – nothing more. Their main duty was to help at home, not to pursue education. Even so, I gained there something more valuable than knowledge. My teacher was a nun, and she was a ray of light in my life. She always smiled at me and made me feel that I mattered. Her kindness meant everything to me – it was the first time I felt truly seen and cared for.
I lived on the farm for nearly five years until one day, my family came to get me.
My grandfather, my young uncle, and my mother arrived unexpectedly, the day before my first communion ceremony at the church. Madame R tried to convince them to let me stay one more day for the ceremony and the village celebration that followed. There would be candy for the children, she said. I was surprised by her sudden kindness; she had never shown much care before. But my family politely refused, and just like that, my time at the farm came to an end.
For years afterward, I lived with the feeling that my mother had abandoned me. But as I grew older, I learned that she had been part of the French Resistance, and that was why she couldn’t care for me during the war. When you’re part of the Resistance, you have to be ready to act at any hour. You can’t raise a child in those circumstances.
Through therapy, I eventually understood that she hadn’t chosen to leave me. Once I accepted that, our relationship healed, and we became close again – something I’ll always be grateful for.
After leaving the farm, we moved to the port city of Marseille. Like many port cities, Marseille had a “red-light district” where prostitution was regulated by the government. One day, as my mother and I were walking near that neighborhood, she stopped in front of a lingerie shop and looked in the window. I remember seeing the red lace and saying, “We shouldn’t look at that – the devil will get us.”
After we got home, my mother sat me on her lap and told me something important. She realized my fear of the devil came from being raised as a Christian, and she told me that we don’t believe in the devil because we’re Jewish.
I was so shocked I couldn’t even cry from that revelation. I just brightened and said: ‘If we were Jewish, how come we don’t have horns?
Looking back, if I could meet that little girl on that farm, I would gently shake her and tell her to be strong, but I’d also want to embrace her and tell her that everything would be all right! That I see her and that she is loved!
And that’s what I did later in life as a teacher.
I always made sure my students felt that someone saw them, cared for them, and loved them. Because, in a child’s heart, that is what matters most.”