Rosenberg-Keller family. Collection

Lili Rosenberg was born on 15 September 1932 in Croix, France. Her parents were Josef Rosenberg (born on 21 June 1893 in Sataalyanzhely) and Charlotte Keller (born on 27 October 1900 in Sataalyanzhely). Lili was the second of three children from the Rosenberg-Keller family, living with brother Robert (born on 17 December 1933) and André (Dédé) (born on 28 April 1940). The first years of her life Lili lived in Roubaix with her family. Her parents Josef and Charlotte were Hungarian Jews, who came to France before her birth to escape from the anti-Semitic persecutions in their home country. A few years later however, Nazi rule knew no more borders. On the night of 26-27 October 1943, it was calm on Boulevard d’Armentières 42 in Roubaix. Before sleeping the Rosenberg children were very happily excited, because the next day they would celebrate the birthday of their mother. Charlotte, Lili, just 11 years old, Robert, almost 10 years old, and André, 3 and a half years old, prepared the occasion with love. They learned poems and made drawings while father Josef managed to find a pie and flowers. But then, around 3:30 AM, the Feldgendaarmerie came looking for the Rosenberg-Keller family. They had barking dogs and yelled “Los! Schnell!” while destroying everything on their path on their way to the bedrooms up the stairs. As the family was forced out of their home, André took with him his yellow wooden duck on a string and hugged it tightly, as the elderly couple that lived on the ground floor, who were looked at as de facto grandparents, looked on with a glare without mercy on their face. The Rosenberg-Keller family was shipped on a military truck and brought to the prison of Loos, near Lille. There they stayed for two or three days when they were moved again to the prison of St-Gilles near Brussels, packed with many in small cells. After another day, the family was transported to Mechelen/Malines to the Dossin Barracks, where they were all registered on 30 October 1943. The family remained interned in the Dossin Barracks until 13 December 1943, when they were deported. Father Josef was deported with the special transport to Buchenwald, where he perished only two days before liberation. Meanwhile Lili, Robert, André and Charlotte were deported in cattle wagons together to Ravensbrück where they arrived on 16 December 1943. Upon arrival they had to quickly shower and be shaved completely. They all received a number on their prisoners uniform: André: 25610, Robert: 25611, Lili: 25612, Charlotte: 25613. In the wooden barracks of Ravensbrück, namely Blok 31, they met Geneviève de Gaulle, the niece of the general, and Jacqueline d’Allincourt (the “violaine” of the network of Daniel Cordier) as well as communist resistance fighters Martha Desrumeaux and Jeanne Tétard. The days in Ravensbrück were filled with work, sickness, bad hygiene and endless roll calls. Charlotte always woke her children up at 3 AM before the roll call of 3:30 AM so they could still wash themselves before the little water points in the overflowing camp were stormed. In 1945, Charlotte and the Rosenberg children were moved to the camp of Bergen-Belsen. The stench there was unbearable, with bodies on the ground and many sick prisoners. Charlotte was tasked with emptying trucks filled with dead bodies into ditches/trenches which were doused with petrol and then set on fire. There was a typhoid epidemic combined with dire living conditions. Charlotte contracts dysentery, Robert is so infected by vermin that furuncles have invaded his skull. André suffers from anthrax and escapes from the Revier infirmary, both a place of death and a place of experimentation for the Nazis. Lili Rosenberg feared for her mother’s life, who weighed only 30 kg and was nearly unconscious. But then on 15 April 1945 the door of the barrack opened and in came an English soldier. The camp was liberated by the British. The three Rosenberg children were repatriated together without their mother (who had to stay in the camp infirmary) to the Parisian hotel Lutetia. When they left the hotel, a social worker placed them with her brother, a dentist, and consequently an aunt of the Rosenberg children took them to Niort, but still too weakened for a normal life they were brought to a preventorium in Hendaye, where their mother Charlotte finally found them.

On 7 October 2013, Lili alias Liliane Rosenberg-Leignel permitted Kazerne Dossin to archive and digitise five photographs in this collection.

Lili alias Liliane Rosenberg-Leignel