White drawstring hand coverings worn by a Jewish infant living in hiding

Betti Blaugrund was born in Uccle, Belgium, on July 16, 1942, to Ze’ev (Wolf) Blaugrund and Cypra (Tsipora) Guitel-Berlinska, b. March 14, 1912, in Pabianice near Łódź, Poland. Cypra was the youngest of 8 in an Orthodox Jewish family: 4 boys, Hersz, b. 1900, Barukh (Bruno), Willy, b. 1910, and Israel-Elyasz, b. 1905, and 4 girls, Szewa-Mindel, Lena, b. 1908, and Idessa (Ida), b. 1903. Cypra’s father, Yacob-David, b. 1878, was the son of Hersz Berlinski. Her mother, Laja, was born in Zdunska-Wolf, on May 15, 1976, the eldest daughter of Mosche-Leib Maslo. Yacob, a wood trader, died in 1916. All had to work to support the family. Cypra took care of the household. Hersz died in 1918. Bruno went to live with a maternal aunt, Mrs. Abba Kempinski, in Praszka. Szewa married Isaac Starc, moved to Breslau, and had 2 children: Yacob-David, b. 1919, and Gerda, b. 1922. Lena went to assist the couple who were itinerant fur merchants. In 1925, they moved to Anderlecht, a Jewish immigrant community in Brussels, Belgium. In 1926, Laja, Willy, and Cypra left Blaszki and joined them; Idessa and Israel arrived the next year. In Belgium, Cypra learned French and worked as a manual laborer. In 1933, Bruno arrived from Germany after Hitler’s rise to power. Ida married Wigdor Klajn, an itinerant merchant, b. July 17, 1905, in Sokolniki, Poland, and had 2 children, Aline, b. May 6, 1935, and Jacob-Kalman, b. May 27, 1936. Israel married Rywka Frenkiel, b. October 24, 1910, in Varsovie, Poland. They left for Palestine, and had a daughter on March 1, 1935. Israel’s health did poorly there, so they returned and had a son Jacques, b. December 16, 1936. Lena wed Leon Guzy and Charlotte was born October 7, 1936. Willy died of an infection in 1939. Betti’s father Wolf was born on July 21, 1910, to Abraham-Haim Blaugrund and Bra’ha Kollender in Neu-Sandez, Austria (Nowy-Sacz, Poland). He was the 4th of 9 in a Hassidic family: Barukh, b. 1902, Salomon, b. 1905, Frieda, b. 1908, Aharon, b. 1912, Reiser-Perl, b. 1916, Ryfka, b. 1918, Moische, b. 1920, and Rukhla, b. 1922. Barukh left for Antwerp in 1928, joined by Wolf in 1929, then Frida, after their mother’s death in 1930. Wolf trained as a diamond cutter. Betti’s parents became acquainted in March 1940. On May 10, Belgium was invaded by Germany. Cypra’s family, with Wolf, now her fiance, fled to France which was occupied by Germany in June. Cypra and Wolf married on August 18, 1940, in Revel, near Toulouse. They were harassed for being Jewish and, feeling unsafe in Vichy France, returned to Uccle. In mid-1942, Betti’s parents were to report for forced labor in Germany. They suspected they would be sent to concentration camps and decided to go into hiding. Cypra, Wolf, Israel, and Rywka moved into an apartment rented by Gertrude Tichy, Bruno’s half-Jewish Austrian wife. Israel’s children, Aviva and Jacques Berlinski, were taken in by a non-Jewish family. The Klajn’s and Laja were given refuge with Alfred and Clara Duval. In August 1942, Szewa and her husband, abandoned by someone paid to smuggle them into France, were deported. Cypra searched for a place to hide her baby. She was refused by a convent “since there were already enough.” She found a woman who took 6 week old Betti for a fee. Cypra visited weekly. Her obstetrician also visited and, seeing the baby covered with sores due to neglect, reprimanded the caretaker, who began bathing her regularly. Cypra wanted to take her back, but Wolf convinced her that while the baby had a right to live, she did not have the right to die with them. On October 20, Cypra planned to take Betti away and told the doctor, who told her to be patient for the caretaker might denounce them. He left without leaving the prescription and Cypra went to his office. As he let her in, the phone rang; it was Wolf who told her not to come home, and gave instructions to meet later. The rule in the home where they hid, the rule was to not answer the doorbell, but to escape over the backyard wall. But this time when the bell rang, Gertrude answered and 2 German officers rushed in. They stopped Wolf in the garden; he went to change and, seeing him in his underwear, the German left the room and shut the door. Wolf fled out a side door and hid until, afraid that Cypra would return, he knocked at a door and begged them to let him telephone his wife. Cypra’s sisters, Ida and her daughter, and Lena with hers were visiting; Wigdor came with their son to get Ida - all 9 were arrested. Thinking everyone was gone, Laja wanted to leave her hiding place and join her family, but the Duval’s convinced her to stay for the baby’s sake. A short while later, Wolf and Cypra arrived at the Duval’s, and were given refuge. They retrieved Betti, but the Duval’s said a 3 month old child was too risky as her cries would attract attention. Alfred Duval asked a friend, Louis Paesen, the assistant police superintendent, to come see him at his butcher shop. Alfred asked if he was a “good Belgian” while threatening him with his butcher knife. Louis asked him why he was acting this way and Alfred told him that he had to hide a Jewish infant and he thought Louis and his wife could handle it. Louis talked it over with his wife Anna. They did not see how they could manage it, but Anna’s sister, Odile and her husband, Louis Ceulemans, in Aarschot, had in the past fostered a child. They agreed to take Betti. Cypra refused to release her daughter to strangers a 2nd time. Odile and her 19 year old daughter Rosa came to Brussels to reassure her and promised to bring Betti to Brussels monthly. Cypra relinquished Betti and gave Odile family photographs which she would show to Betti every day, explaining that these were her real parents. The photos were placed in an armoire that Betti came to call “Papa kast en Mama kast” (kast is Flemish for armoire.) Odile, whom Betti called Mama Dileke, b. March 14, 1902, was a devout Catholic. With Betti, they visited Brussels monthly where she played with the Paesen’s girls. Because of the danger of so much travel, Rosa’s fiance, Richard Elseviers, a street-car conductor, created a signal to warn Rosa and her mother when a train was to be checked by Gestapo. The Ceulemans-Gryson’s lived on a small farm and Betti was fed fresh milk and eggs and recovered her health. Brussels was liberated by Allied troops in September 1944 and when Cypra arrived to get Betti, she was in her best clothes, waiting with Odile on the sidewalk. Most of her maternal relatives who resided in Belgium were killed in Auschwitz. Most of those in her father’s family who had stayed in Poland perished. After the war, Cypra, Wolf, Betti, and Laja settled in Andrelecht. Betti married and had two daughters. Laja died in 1962. Wolf, 69, died in 1979. Cypra, 95, passed away in 2007.

The baby mitts were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2011 by Betti Blaugrund.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Betti Blaugrund

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.