Fred Kader Shoah Foundation Testimony

Today is November 19th, 1995. The name of the survivor is Fred Kader, who was born as Jeruzalski. And the interviewer is Sheryl Tatelman. We're in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States, and we'll be interviewing in English. I'm Sheryl Tatelman, and I'm here with Fred Kader. And we're in Omaha, Nebraska, and we'll be doing the interview in English.

Could you tell us your name, please?

Fred Kader. Actually, my original name was Fred Jeruzalski. Or in Belgium where I was born, in French was really Francois. The original name is actually Polish, to make it even more complicated. It's really Francisek, but being born in Belgium, I always really became more French, and so the name Francois is really what I went by in Belgium.

So you were born as Franciszek Jeruzalski.

Right.

And could you spell Jeruzalski for us?

J-E-R-U-Z-A-L-S-K-I.

And how did your name become Frans or Francois?

Well, during the war, while I was hidden, I was called Frans, which is -- may well be the Flemish version of the French, which is Francois. And so I was really Frans Jeruzalski during the war. After the war, living in Brussels, in the French part of Belgium, I became Francois. And then I became Fred when I moved to, and when I was brought to Montreal by a great aunt. That's when I converted it to English, so now I became a Fred. But that's where I added the name Kader from my great aunt's married name. And so that's how I finally became Fred Jeruzalski Kader.

And how long have you had that name, Fred Jeruzalski Kader?

I've used that name ever since 1949 when I came to Montreal from Belgium.

What were your parents' names?

My father's name was Jacob Jeruzalski. My mother's name was Basza-Ryfka Krysztal. And they're both originally from Poland.

And they were originally from Poland, and that's why you had the Polish name.

Name, right. That's why I was a Polish citizen, originally even though I was born in Belgium.

When were you born?

I was born July 1938. I was born July 20th, 1938 in Antwerp in Belgium.

And did you have brothers and sisters?

Yes, I found out not until after the war that indeed we had a big family. My father was married twice. And so I've got a half-sister and a half-brother from my father's first marriage. And then when his wife died, you know, it was the custom in Europe, you marry the sister of the person you're married to if they're still single in the old custom, customary way back in Europe. And so I've got actual brothers and sisters from my father's second marriage. For the first marriage, I had a half- sister, Rachel Gitel. And then there was another son from that first marriage. And that was Felix. And then when my father remarried to my mother, there were two older brothers. There was a Ignace and an older brother, Paul. And then I was next in line. And then there was a younger brother that I had, Jules. He actually died during the War of natural causes back in 1941.

Well, do you have any memories of this family from before the war?

No, I really don't. This is a. . . In fact, first I found out about my family was when the organizations after the war were trying to obtain information for survivors. And from my uncle who found me after the war, I was able to get some history as to what was what with my family. But even then, after the war, when I was with my uncle, I was all of seven years old. And a lot of it just really didn't impress on me as much as it probably should have. But it's only through obtaining information through the organizations that helped me, for example, after the war while I was in Montreal, for example, in regards to information needed for reparation from Germany, that I found out where we used to live, where my parents actually were when they were born, and who my family was. But all of this is all information that I have obtained since I got older and which I really didn't know at all, really before.

But you do know that you were a Polish citizen because your parents were both originally Polish?

Correct.

And when did they move to Belgium?

Well, actually, my family from what I gathered from the records, originally left Poland and were actually in Germany. And this happened in 1920s. In fact, my sister was born in Berlin, and my half-sister and Felix, my half-brother was actually born in Hamburg. And this goes back to 1920, 1922. And then when my father remarried, my oldest actual brother, Ignace, is already born in Belgium, and that's 1932. So my family moved, escaping from what I gather. That's what I found out from talking to people in Belgium who actually knew my family. Michael Goldberg is a lives in Belgium, and he also was hidden in the war where I was. And he actually knew my family because they met his family and my family. This was even before I was born, obviously. They knew each other in Germany, in Berlin, living as neighbors. And then both families actually left Germany and went to live in Belgium at the same time. From what I gather when there was all the upheavals in Europe. In 1919, the Russian Revolution, the Polish king and obviously the Polish government was afraid that Jews were going to do the same thing in Poland. And that's when the Pogrom started, from the natural history of what happened to Jews in Europe. And that's when they left and went to the, quote, "enlightened country" of Germany, only to get out of there in the 1930s. In the 1930s, when problems started again, obviously at the time when Hitler was coming to power. And so the family moved from Germany and went into Belgium, which was quite a safe refuge for Jews at that time. And so that's why I was born in Belgium.

And do you have any memories at all of your family from before the war?

No, there's no really recollections that I have. There's no pictures. There are family pictures that my uncle had in Belgium and my cousin has still in Belgium, still living there. But we don't know who's who. So there's pictures of people in the uniforms of the Polish Army and the Polish Lancers. And even though my uncle told me that my father had been in the Polish Army as a Lancer at some point in the past, we really don't know from looking at the pictures who's who. And I've never seen pictures of the brothers and sisters. They don't have any recollection.

Well, what are some of your earliest memories?

Well, the earliest memories, I guess, now in retrospect, I know, are really referred to the time that the Holocaust was going on in Europe and in Belgium. As a child, you always wonder what do you really recall and what do you remember people telling you? But I do recall very early on walking the streets. And now in retrospect, I understand that that's when I was separated from my mother. And that was the beginning of being able to survive. In Antwerp there was a raffle and Jews being sent out to their deaths as part of the Holocaust to Auschwitz. And from what I found out from speaking to an aunt on my uncle's side, the same uncle who found me after the war, as part of the raffle that went on in Antwerp that I was with my mother when she was being deported from Antwerp. And by train, the Jews were being sent from all over Belgium to Malines,1 which was a deportation site. There was a deportation camp just outside of Brussels. And I was with my mother at that time. And from the train station itself, from what I gathered from this aunt, my mother told me to just walk away and to just get out of the train station. And that's what I did. So I was four at that time. And I guess walking the streets relates to the time that when I was separated from my mother, she went on to her death. And I fortunately, instead of being picked up by the Germans, was picked up by a nun from one of the religious orders. And the only thing I remember is that I realized, much later on, when I saw pictures on TV, the nuns used to wear these long, long, big, white head-dressing head-pieces with the flowing thing in the back that registered. It meant something to me. And so I was saved because I was, while walking the streets of Antwerp after that picked up by a nun and I was that way saved and sent to be hidden in a home where the Jewish children children were being hidden at that time. In Antwerp, the people were obviously hiding. Jewish children's parents were trying to save their children. My mother obviously hadn't done that, but at least she had me walk away from the train station.

So you know that your mother had asked you to leave, or for some reason you had walked away. She had . . .

Right.

Was the rest of your family with you at that time do you know?

No, I think at that time. Actually, this was in September 1942 when the convoy started out of Belgium to Auschwitz. I had a brother who had already been sent to Auschwitz. I think Felix was already gone. He went with one of the most earliest of the convoys out of Belgium in August when the deportation started during the Holocaust in September. My actual two other brothers, I found out, were also already sent and deported deported and were already on the way to Auschwitz also. My sister, I really don't know anything about it. There's no recollection anywhere. There's no records anywhere that she was deported out of Belgium to Auschwitz. All this coming from the German archives. My father had been sent to France to slave labor to work on the dikes, the French dikes, in northern France, the Germans to build the dikes, and for fear of the invasion from the Allied armies. So he, already in August, had been sent and his records from the archives of which, again, I obtained way after the war. That showed that he had been working in France. So the family was already all broken up and split up. Some already gone to their, to their death to be killed in Auschwitz. So I was with my mother and this was in September itself, the latter part of September.

Of 1942?

Of 1942. And so I was hidden while she went on the train and was deported to Malines and then on to Auschwitz. And I was hidden there for a while near Antwerp in a home called the Good Angels, the home of the Good Angels in near Antwerp. And unfortunately, even though they were hiding myself and other children. There was a total of about six of us. The home got denounced to the Nazis, to the Gestapo. And so we were picked up. And even though I missed the train the first time out of Antwerp, the Nazis made sure I got to Malines anyhow. And so we ended up being sent to Malines, all of us. What happened to the people who ran that home, I don't know.

So you were in a home. When you say there were six of you, there were six Jewish children in this home-

All being hidden.

And were there other children in the home? Do you know?

I don't know. All I know of these six hidden children, because I found out that story again later on from people who ended up in Malines also, who were deported from the orphanage, where they had been also being sent to Malines. Eventually, they managed to survive. They got a chance to leave Malines. And it's from Mrs. Blum, who ran this orphanage in, near Brussels in, in Wezembeek Oppem, that she knew how these six children had gotten to Malines, that they found when they were sent, and when they were deported from the orphanage in Wezembeek, they managed to survive because they were allowed to leave Malines. And it's when they left Malines that they picked us up, these six children. And so this is how I once again survived and managed to escape the train going Auschwitz, for the second time.

If I could just go back for a minute to when you were picked up by these nuns. You had left your mother. Your mother had told you to walk away. And you walked the streets in Antwerp and were picked up by these nuns. Do you know whether these nuns were running this orphanage or this place where you were staying? Do you have any memories of that?

I really don't. I remember walking the streets. So I said, you know, this is what I was doing, but how exactly I got to this home this I don't know. And I don't know if it was part of the religious order or if it probably wasn't, I would say, because other Jewish children were being hidden there, and it sounds like I was put there. But the nuns who knew that Jewish children were being hidden there. From what I gather from speaking with Mrs. Blum, there was a directress of the Wezembeek home, eventually where I was the orphanage. From what she said, it sounded more like people knew there was a Jewish children hiding place. At least people were helping to hide. Jewish children were aware of it. But unfortunately, it got denounced.

It got denounced, and you were sent to Malines.

Right, to the deportation camp. And this was sometime in October. So I know I'd been there for a while. But the vibes and the impression that I got from Mrs. Blum, this was not the longest of time, apparently it was denounced. If you look at the date of the deportation of my mother, which was September 22nd, and by October 30th, I was already in Malines. These days were all documented from what had happened to the German archives that people had made records from, and from what the people who had been sent to Malines from Wezembeek, the days that they were sent. I could not have been in that place hiding, being hidden very long. When Mrs. Blum and the group from Wezembeek was in Malines, and when they saw us, apparently we, the six of us did not look like we were in the best of health. [unclear] She stated that we probably had been there for several weeks.

In Malines

In Malines. We were just in the corner of these barracks, which is what Malines was originally, an army barrack. And the way we looked, she said we had been there for several weeks, and who knows what exactly we survived on. We were just in the corner of the barrack when they found us.

And who found you?

There was a group from the orphanage from Wezembeek Oppem at Mrs. Blum. Mrs. Marie Albert Blum, Blum was her married name, was the director of what had happened was that this Jewish orphanage was created in September because there were a lot of Jewish children who were left as orphans roaming the streets of Belgium in Brussels. And this home in Wezembeek had actually been a pulmonary sanitarium for TB. And so it was a children's place. And Mrs. Blum was working there, and she was the only one who had some nursing experience. So when there were a lot of orphaned children roaming the streets through the Jewish organization, and obviously with the acceptance by the occupied German army, they were allowed to create this place for the placement of Jewish children who were orphans. And so the sanitarium got converted to an orphanage. And so if your parents were lost or deported or, quote, in those days you weren't deported, they went to "work" somewhere in Europe. It's what the Nazis were saying, but effectively they're on their way to Auschwitz. So if you were born in Belgium and you were under the age of 16, then you could be placed in this orphanage in Wezembeek Oppem, which is little towns which are really suburbs, effectively, of Brussels. And being out in the country, that's why there had been a sanitarium. And Mrs. Marie Albert Blum being familiar with the place, having had some nursing experience looking after children. Sort of got volunteered to look after the orphanage. Actually, her family, she herself was born in Belgium, and her family actually, from what I gathered from her, some of them had left Belgium and gotten out during the Holocaust, and she elected to remain behind and indeed become responsible for these orphaned children. And she was a young lady in her late 20s, I guess, 20s and early 30s, looking after all these orphaned children. Eventually, in time, this orphanage became part of all of the orphanages and known places known to the Nazis where Jewish children were being kept. Everybody was registered who was Jewish. Everybody wore a Jewish star. Everybody had to be, their whereabouts had to be known to the Nazis to the Gestapo. And when it started off as an orphanage for Jewish children who had lost their parents, actually got incorporated into this major overall organization that Judenrat put together in which the Nazis and the Gestapo were very aware of. What happened was that the home had been started in the beginning of September, 1942, and by October, they had already over 50-odd children there with about seven, eight people, adults, that were looking after the children. Mrs. Marie Albert Blum was there, with her sister, who now lives in Israel, who survived. Mrs. Marie Albert Blum still lives in Belgium, in Brussels, but she, her sister, and these other adults, they were looking after this place, and the Nazi commander, the Nazi and the Gestapo people decided the end of October to liquidate the orphanage and to send everybody to Malines and then on to Auschwitz.

Now, you weren't in the orphanage at tha time.

No, I was still being hidden. I was either hidden in the home of the Good Angels, in Antwerp though I was already, at that time, already must have been in Malines, the place having been denounced. And so, October 30th, the orphanage at Wezembeek was liquidated. And the 50-odd children and Mrs. Marie Albert Blum and her people were sent to Malines on their way to Auschwitz. And so, they got there on October 30th, 1942. And what was happening is that convoys were being started from Malines for the Belgian people, but there were also a lot of Belgian people who were working in France. And so, after they had worked under slave labor for a while, they were being sent back from northern France from having worked there, back to Malines, and from there, the convoy was further loaded with people who were being deported from Belgium itself. And then these convoys from Malines went on into Germany and on into Poland to Auschwitz. And when the group from Wezembeek, with Mrs. Marie Albert Blum, got there October 30th, the convoy was late in coming from France. And what, of course, was happening at that time that the world denied it, people already knew that these convoys were going to Auschwitz and going to their death. And so, people would escape from the convoys. And since the convoy originated in northern France, near Calais, the people who were being transported on these convoys were people who were still very healthy, who had been working. And so, these people were jumping the train. And, of course, the Nazis would either shoot them if they could or send the dogs after them to get them back. But every time someone else jumped the train, the train would stop and they would try to catch the people who would jump off the trains. And it was for this reason that this went on and on as the train was coming from northern France, that the train was delayed in getting to Malines. And so, I was in Malines at that time, and the Wezembeek people that Mrs. Marie Albert Blum was looking after also came to Malines, and everybody was waiting for the convoy to come.

And at that time, you would have gone on a transport, presumably to Auschwitz

With the convoy that was coming that day, because that's when we were slated to leave Malines to go to Auschwitz. And so, the convoys, 16 and 17, were late and coming from northern France. And the reason I know the numbers of the convoys, as it turns out, my father and my uncle were on that convoy. Yes. As I had mentioned, he had been sent to work in slave labor in northern France. And so, they were on the convoy coming back at that time in October from northern France. And the convoy finally came to Malines. And at that time, I was already gone. I was fortunately saved by Mrs. Marie Albert Blum and the people from Wezembeek. What it happened was because the convoy was late and the people were there all day, they were able to eventually, in time, get out of Malines. They were given permission to leave Malines buy their way out. And what happened was that in Malines, in Wezembeek, where Mrs. Marie Albert Blum was and the children, there were two people who used to work there who were non-Jewish. And at the time, the Gestapo just walked in and said that everybody's leaving. Just take what you got and you don't have to take much. Before they left, the Nazis and the Gestapos told Mrs. Blum to pay off the money that was due, these two Gentile people who were working at Wezembeek home. And when Mrs. Blum did that, she paid one of the girls the money. She scribbled the phone number on a piece of paper and put it in with the money. And this young girl realized, of course, what was going on. And the phone number turned out to be the number for the organization that was helping and was responsible for all of the Jewish children in Belgium. And what had happened was that even though the Gestapo and the Nazis knew where all the Jewish children were, there was a parallel organization set up in Belgium. And the Queen Mother of Belgium, was sort of the major figurehead and the one who overseer oversaw all of these orphanages. There was a parallel organization in Belgium itself.

Today is November 19th, 1995, we're with Dr. Fred Kader. You were discussing how there was a group of children who were in Wezembeek and they were deported to Malines and yet they were able to return to Wezembeek. And could you tell us a little more about that?

Well, what happened was that, even though the Nazis and the Gestapos knew where all the children were in all these orphanages and there were records of everybody kept, there was also a parallel registry run by the Jewish organizations in Belgium and all these orphanages had the Queen Mother of Belgium as the head of this organization. And when the Nazis and the Gestapos came to liquidate the home, the orphanage of Wezembeek, they told Mrs. Marie Albert Blum to pay the money that was owed to two non-Jewish workers who were at the home. And when Marie Albert Blum paid them their wages to one of them, she wrote on a little note, a phone number which turned out to be the phone number of this organization in Belgium where they were keeping track of all the Jewish children in Belgium. And so this young girl, when she got paid the wages, took this phone number and called that number and told them what was happening to the children and to Mrs. Marie Albert Blum and her staff for what's happening in Wezembeek that they were being deported to Auschwitz via Malines. And as she called this number and worked this way up the ladder, the chain of command through this organization, this Belgian organization and the word eventually got to the Queen Mother and she then went ahead. And set the wheel of the motion going to try to get the German commander of the army who ran Malines to see if she could get them from them permission because all these children were born in Belgium and they were her children as she used to call the Belgian children. If she gets from the German commander, the order that would rescind the Nazi Gestapo order to be sent to Auschwitz.

And this was going on all day and into all evening while the train from Nordenfest was late in coming to Malines and they had the time to do this through the underground. Money was being raised to pay off the German army commander and he indeed was paid big money from what I gather, from what I've learned this year when I was in Belgium at one of the meetings of the hidden children. He was paid some really big sums of money and with time they indeed got permission for the children from Wezembeek and Mrs. Marie Albert Blum in the group to be allowed to leave Malines and go back to Wezembeek. And that took all day and all evening and the thing was that as this happened, they of course by this time had found us, us six children who were in the corner of one of the barracks and so they went back from Malines to Wezembeek Mrs. Marie Albert Blum also managed to get us to be released as well and to be allowed to go with her from Malines to Wezembeek. What had happened was that some of the older children who were in the group that had come from Wezembeek to Malines, there were already big children, 10 years old, 11 years old, cause everybody had to be under the age of 16. So the older children at that time were around 10 or 11 had started to snoop around in the barracks. They were told to stay put but obviously they, like 10, 11 year olds, they don't listen. They went off and started to snoop around the barracks and it was a children who found us hidden in the corner in one of the barracks.

And so we, when Mrs. Marie Albert Blum eventually was given permission to go back from Malines to Wezembeek. They had a big army truck and this is how like an army style truck with a canvas topping and the tailgate that had a chair hanging on that the kids would be able to climb up into the truck and this is a transportation that they use to get away from Malines back to Wezembeek. And this is the time that I was saved again from going to Auschwitz cause the six of us, myself and the other children who already had been in Malines were allowed to leave and go with the group back to Wezembeek Oppem. And so I managed to escape the convoy from Northern France eventually came through that night and indeed left at that same time from Malines to Auschwitz. I found out through Mrs. Blum that though we were allowed to leave, the convoy now was short the same number of children that had been slated to go to Auschwitz from Wezembeek which was like 50 odd children. The seven adults who had come with the children there was Mrs. Marie Albert Blum, her sister and some other people. And there were now six other children who had been slated for the convoy. There was myself and the other children who had already been in Malines. And what the Gestapo did is they went to the local hospital and it took an equal number of people who were in the hospital, put them on the train in Malines and took them to Auschwitz instead of us. So they still filled the quota with the Gestapo Nazis did to make sure they had the right number of quotas to go on the train from Malines to Auschwitz. Those people gave up their lives.

And you were taken back to-

And so this is how I got to, from Malines to Wezembeek. The train and the convoy that came from Northern France from the records and information that's available from the archives. I found out my father was on that train and it was because of my uncle. And I don't know what my father was thinking about obviously. He had already been separated from the family a long time ago working on slave labor and here he was coming through Malines. On his way to Auschwitz while I was already in Malines being saved by the group from Wezembeek and the Queen and all the underground work to save the children from Wezembeek and so I managed to escape. My father went to Auschwitz at that time with my uncle, his brother also on the train. They were in different parts of the train from what my uncle tells me and he was going from wagon to wagon looking for my father and he just couldn't find him on the train. And just before the train left Belgium into Germany, my uncle jumped the train and that's how he survived. And my father did not, as far as we know, and went to Auschwitz and went to his death. Went to be killed in Auschwitz. The trains in those days were not like the trains that everybody talks about now, the cattle cars where people were locked in, there was no change, no chance to escape. In those days we're using the regular civilian trains and the trains in Europe at that time in Belgium and in the other countries were actually regular trains and on the outside of the train there was a platform that the conductor used to walk up and down to collect the tickets and because the train was not locked and it was one of these civilian trains that people had a chance to jump the train and escape which is what caused the delay to begin with. And my uncle was walking up and down the platform trying to find my father, trying to find his brother and he just couldn't do it.

You left Malines to go to Wezembeek. Do you remember any of what happened then or any of that journey?

Well, what happened was, another thing that, probably stands out the most, in my mind we had left, obviously at night it was dark and I remember sitting on someone's lap and just crying my head off all night. In fact the people who I'd met since then and they told me that I was impossible that night. And I remember just sitting on someone's lap crying and hearing a constant banging and clanging and what of course what that was and I found out later was that the tailgate of the truck had been pulled up to close the truck and so the chair that had been dangling from the tailgate that people used to step on and then onto the tailgate to get into the truck was up against the tailgate and that was what was banging and clanging all night as the truck was going from Malines back to Wezembeek. And that I still remember very vividly and then I found out later it turns out that the person whose lap I was sitting on, I eventually met and this was in May, four years ago, May of 1991 when they had the first World Congress of people who were hidden as children during the war. One of the Congress that went on in New York City and that's where I met Marcel, Marcel Chojnacki and he was the one who I was sitting on.

How old were you at that time?

At that time I was four years old. This was October 31st, 1942 when I just turned four. When that happened and it wasn't until 91, 50 years later that I met Marcel and I found out what happened. Sorry, took 50 years to find out what happened to me in the first four years of my life.

Do you remember coming to Wezembeek? Do you remember any of that transition?

I remember in Wezembeek, I remember there was something that I recall in Wezembeek. There was a time when I was there, it must have been already a little older and with some of the other fellows, we would actually climb out of a window on top of the roof and then get into the trees from the orchards that were around. The question is, did we really do it for fun, to eat the or, to eat the fruits, during the nights that we do because we were hungry? And I don't know, I just don't remember. But since being back in Wezembeek this May, the tree is still there near the back of the house where we would get out the window on a fire escape and that's obviously how we climbed up to the roof and out to the tree. I remember that.

There's other events that I recall. There was a wall, which I thought was a pretty big wall in those days, I guess I must have been pretty small, being all of four years old. But there was a wall that went all around Wezembeek and this must have been already near the latter part of the end of the war. Because we could hear the planes droning every day as they were flying obviously overhead, going into Germany, to bomb Germany. And I remember night after night just listening to the droning and the droning of the planes, which were the bombers, which we found out afterwards. But one night there was the biggest loudest bang we ever heard and I remember hearing the bang being woken up and I remember being up for during that night. And then in the morning there was a big huge hole in the wall where obviously a bomb had landed by accident close to where we were in Wezembeek and it actually created this huge hole in the wall. The hole was still there. I saw the wall, the broken wall in May when I was back in Belgium and I went to visit Wezembeek.

So this . . .

Which is now still a place where children are being looked after, when other children are there because of the difficulties that they have managing and behaviorally managing to cope and live in it. But it's still a place that's looking after the welfare of children. It's still being used 50 years later. But the hole in the wall is still there. And I know it's at about the same time that I remember we had a big assembly one day. And I remember the assembly, 'cause everybody was there and we were told that whatever we saw, whatever we heard, to forget about. If anybody had asked us any questions, no matter what, to just say we didn't know anything. What had happened is one day there was a lot of commotion in the camp and then we saw a gentleman in a blue uniform with wings that turned out to be obviously an RAF pilot that had parachuted out of a plane, must have been hit. And through the Belgian Underground, who must have gotten to him first. They brought him to Wezembeek where he stayed for a couple of hours while they can get things organized to get him out of the country and away from the German army. And there was this very distinguished looking gentleman all dressed in blue with a hat with the wings, decorations and insignias of the RAF, which I didn't know what it was at that time. And but I remember that and sure enough in 1991 in the New York meeting, there were people who could recall exactly what happened that time and how the underground whisked him to Wezembeek where he was able to hide for a while for a couple hours until they could get him back out of there. And so people were able to indeed corroborate things that I remembered, the incidents of climbing into the trees because near the end of the war, that's what all the children did. So apparently it must have been, I guess, worse than usual. And people were able to even corroborate when the bomb fell. They knew the date when this happened. So people at that Congress in New York could corroborate all these things that I remembered.

The other thing that I remembered is an incident where I could picture myself sitting on my knees and praying with some black beads. And here I was on my knees at the end of the bed that had the bars as you could look through. Simple little bars like at the foot of the bed. And what of course I didn't realize is that those black beads were part of what saved my life. What it happened was that near the end of the war, we were hidden in a convent near Brussels. We were sent to hide as the German army was retreating out of Belgium as they were pulling back into Germany. And what people told me at the New York meeting in 91 was that towards the end of the war in August of 44, there had now been enough infiltration by the underground of German positions and offices that they got wind that the German army was going to retreat and that the Gestapo and the Nazis were gonna come again not to pay a regular visit to the Wezembeek home, but they were gonna come to liquidate the home once again. Just like they had failed the first time, in 38, they were now gonna liquidate it again before they left Belgium. And so the night before through the underground, not only was Wezenbeek emptied, but all the homes around Brussels and Belgium were emptied and now we were taken into hiding to be hidden by non-Jewish people. And so the convents around the area, churches, whatever could hide Jewish children were utilized and a group of us younger boys were sent to this convent in the [College De Brebeuf] And we were there and what we were doing, of course, is acting like non-Jewish children. Before you went to bed, you had to say your prayers. And what I had in my hand was a rosary and supposedly we should have been praying and counting the rosary and instead I was playing with the beads, but I barely remember all of us, lots of children just on our knees at the foot of our beds with these bars sort of facing us. And we go through then, these prayers in the evening before we went to bed, and indeed people have been able to very specifically know the time, which I found out from Mrs. Marie Albert Blum and the other people. And this happened the end of August of 1944 into September of 44 while the German army retreated and while the allies liberated Brussels. I remember going from the convent back to Wezembeek and the place was totally desolate. There was nothing left in Wezembeek except empty bunks, metal bunks, anything that was of any kind of furniture anything of any kind of value, even curtains on the walls, chairs, everything was just all gone. Only thing that was left was an empty place with just bunks of metal beds. When we got back to Wezembeek after we were allowed by the liberation army, I guess, to return to Wezembeek. And that's all that was left is plain, plain bare walls.

The convent that we were at, I remember being impressed by how big the church was. Now that I've seen it's a little chapel, I remember the home that we lived in next to the church with a little chapel and the white facade that it had and it's still painted white. I was there this spring when we went to Belgium and went to visit the orphanage in Wezembeek and we went and I was there with my wife. I went to visit the convent where we were hidden. My cousin still lives in Belgium, Victor, my uncle who managed to escape from the train. It's his son Victor who lives in Brussels and we went and visited these places. We knew where exactly all these places were once I gave him the names and we found them. I went with Sarah and my cousin Victor, we drove there. And the way I remember the white facade of the house next to the convent is still there. There's nobody there, of course, who had been there 50 years ago. All the people that were there now were all new and didn't know anything at all about what had happened during the war there. But the convent is still there and it's still acting as a convent, as a religious place, the people still help to the local hospital nearby. And in fact, that's where they work to help. That's as nuns and being of help and support to the people in that hospital. I don't know if it's the same hospital where they took the people to Auschwitz from. Things have changed a lot and it probably isn't I would think. But I remember that part that must have been already done pretty close to the end of the war.

And I remember at the end of the war itself, when obviously families were coming to pick up children and slowly, Wezembeek emptied out. And I was still there. I was one of the last of the children, to leave Wezembeek I was there - the war ended in 45, and I was still there until 47. And I remember just being there and playing something out and figuring that I'm just gonna be there forever. It was a pretty lonesome time. I remember feeling very lonely, being very alone.

And then my uncle found me, my father's brother, who had jumped the train. He actually found his way back to where his wife and children were and gathered up. And then he went into hiding in southern France, living under the ground in a little chamber in the middle of a farmer's field. And he was a Schneider, he was a tailor. So he would do some tailor work for the farmer who fed them and looked after them, and that's the way the farmer made some extra money. And that's where he spent the war in the hiding in southern France, in southern Belgium. And then after the war, he started, of course, to look for family, to find out who was still alive. And there had been a close friend of the family who we knew who became a social worker and worked for the Jewish organization that was trying to repatriate families and get families back together again. And he happened by accident to bump into this lady. My uncle, Hersh-Motel, did. And as he met this lady, they were both shocked to see each other. And I guess he, as they were talking, he mentioned that he was the only survivor that he knew of the family, of the Jeruzalski-Jerozolimski family. And she says, no, I've seen a record summary. There's another Jeruzalski name on one of the orphanages listings. And that's how my uncle found me. Even though he and my father were brothers, somebody changed their names. And his name was Jerozolimski My father's name was Jeruzalski. But this is how he found me through this Jewish organization after the war. And this is how I went to live with my uncle and his family after the war. And I was there in Brussels, living with them from 1947. On for a couple of years after that.

Was he married at that time?

Yeah, my uncle was married and had a family. He had an older son, Jacques, who was still alive and is now living in Israel. He had another son that actually passed away during the war. And then in 45, they had another son, Victor, who was named after the war, after the victory. And this is who I lived with then. My uncle, his wife and his two children in Brussels.

You talked a little bit about the children in Wezembeek, many of them leaving and going, finding families in different places. Had you been close with those children?

Well, back then, I must have been because there's all kinds of pictures that have survived from that time, showing me with a lot of the older children, with the older group of children and being very much involved with them, more so than with children of my own age and my own peers. There's only very few pictures of that, the time we wore the Jewish Star.

All of you wore the Jewish Star while you were living in Wezembeek?

Yeah, we were designated known, obviously, as Jewish children in the Gestapo, and the Nazis knew exactly who was who there. And we, in fact, have been told, come on an irregular basis, just unannounced bang on the front door of the orphanage and make a roll call, just to make sure that people were accounted for, there weren't any extra people there. Because what would happen was the underground, they would find children, or as they got children, that people would try to hide. They would bring them to Wezembeek and keep them there for a short while, while they would find a place for them. These people were there as children, without any name, as children, without any identification. These were children that were being hidden through the underground, through the Jewish underground and the Belgian underground. Yeah, but I've spent most of my time with the older kids, and there's pictures of me doing things with them and playing with them. Though all of this, I just don't recall all of this. I just don't remember. I guess it seems couldn't have been all that good, if I suppressed it all.

November 19, 1995, with Dr. Fred Kader. You were talking about your uncle finding you after the war, and that he found you through a family friend. What happened next?

Well, finally, in 47, my uncle took me out of Wezembeek-Oppem And you know I remember the electric train ride. That took us from Wezembeek, which is where the end of the line for the electric train was. And we went into Brussels, where I went to live with him and his family, his wife and his two children, Jacques and Victor. And I lived with him for two years til 1949, went to school in Brussels. And then I remember I was thinking that I was an outsider, that it was my family. And having been in Wezembeek for so many years, how long was I going to be here before? Indeed, I would be moving out to somewhere else. And sure enough, this talk was that everybody was in Europe talking about Zionism and getting to Israel. And indeed, the talk was that maybe I would go to family in Israel on my father's side or on my mother's side. And then there was also talk about maybe going to Argentina, where there was family on my mother's side, on the Krysztal side. I had a great aunt who lived in Canada in Montreal. And eventually, with all the discussions that went on, she being the closest family, it was decided by my great aunt, and my uncle that I would go to Montreal. And so I left Belgium and on my own, I went to Montreal.

How old were you then?

In 1949, I was 11. And so I went by boat from Belgium then to Canada to live with a great aunt. They picked me up in the Quebec, at the Quebec port, and then I came to Montreal. And so I lived with a new family. And I guess after being there for a couple of years with my great aunt and her husband and the family, it took a couple of years to finally start sinking in that this was going to be home, and this was going to be where I really was accepted as a brother, as a family member, and that became my family.

And what was their name, that name of this family?

So my mother's maiden name was Jeruzalski, like mine, and her married name was Kader. And this is how I changed my French name Francois. I'd given up my Flemish name a long time ago, Frans, and I switched my French name from Francois to Fred. And to the Jeruzalski, I added the name Kader. And from there, I did all my papers, all my legal papers, all my college degrees, high school degrees, before that, medical degrees. After college, everything became put out under the name of Fred Jeruzalski Kader. But Montreal is really where I grew up then, and went to a school, had my bar mitzvah. And it was in 40, I guess, 53, 52, 53 is when I had in my bar mitzvah. And that became all my cousins, who were really distant cousins, became my brothers. And I had one sister, Ruthie. And as the family got bigger, they grew, they had children, became an uncle to them, and this really became home. I went to school, high school, went through college in Montreal at McGill University, stayed there to become a doctor, graduated from McGill University Med School. And there wasn't much doubt as I went through high school. I was looking at what I was going to do with myself, and I knew that in time, I was going to become a physician. I wanted to help. And obviously, if not for people helping me, and the way things and events occurred, obviously I wouldn't be here. And I guess being helped as a child made me realize that's what I wanted to do.

And so I decided to go into medicine, and I was interested in the nervous system. I was interested in the brain. I was thinking always. I mean, to use my head, I guess, to survive as the years have gone by with some help that I've been able to receive, I decided to go into this field of aspect of interest in medicine. And that's how I became a neurologist. But I wanted to help kids. I decided that I would do very well. I decided I would do nothing but pediatric neurology. That's eventually what I did. I graduated Med School continued my training in neurology and pediatric neurology. In fact, I went between 66 and 71. I came down to the States from Montreal, from Canada, and did my neurology training at Johns Hopkins Medical School. And then I went up to Yeshiva University of Einstein in New York, and I did my pediatric neurology training there. I went for a while. That's what I wanted to do. And then I went back to Canada. After that to live, I ended up actually in Vancouver, Canada, where my wife Sarah is from. She originally was from Montreal, the family. I lived in Montreal, and the family had moved to Vancouver, Canada, and I knew and actually I had met Sarah when we were both much younger children, soon after coming to Montreal. And so I went back to Canada to live and was there from 71 to 74. And from 74, I decided to find a place where I could go ahead and teach and look after children and go into long-term professional work. And that's how I came back to the States and came to Omaha in December 1974. And I've been practicing pediatric neurology, being a help to the kids ever since, even back in the States.

And like I said, when I graduated from med school in 1964, I had met Sarah the year before that. And we got married when I graduated medical school. So Sarah had been living out west, and that's where I met her actually. I went to visit a friend one summer while still in med school. I went out west and I met Sarah, and eventually she moved back to Montreal, and we got married as soon as I finished medical school. And we stayed in Montreal for two years while I did some training at the Montreal Jewish General Hospital. I did an internship at the Montreal General Hospital, where I did a year of medicine residency before I started on my neurology training in the States, where, as I said, I did my neurology and eventually pediatric neurology. For the two years that we were in Montreal, we had two children. Howard, my oldest, and Eileen, my daughter. She was born a year later, and Howard was born in 65. Eileen was born in 66. And then when we were in the States in Baltimore, Darrin was born, my youngest, and those are our three children. Howard is named after my father. Full Hebrew name is Avraham Chaim Yakov. And Jacob, of course, is after my father, Avraham Chaim, is after my great-aunt's husband, who became my father when I really became part of family in Montreal. And so he's named after those two sides of the family. Eileen is named also after several people. Her name is Eileen Beni Baila Kader, and Eileen is the name after my wife's sister who passed away. And Beni is the English name of my mother, who was Rivka. And Baila was the name of my great-aunt, Sarah Baila. And so she's named after both sides of my family and Sarah's sister, who passed away. She's got three other sisters that I still, there were three other sisters. The other two sisters, there was still an alive one, still live out west in the United States and in Canada. So family's been growing. And here we have our first grandson, Joseph Nathan. Howard married in 1993. He married in Baltimore to our daughter-in-law Lori Eidelman, and she was Lori Eidelman. And they have their first child, Joey Joseph Nathan. He was born in January, February of this, January of this year, January 27th, to be exact. So we now have our first grandson. And if you look at everything that happened, I guess that's the most important thing of all. So sorry. I guess to be able to carry on the next generation, I guess the Holocaust wasn't successful, even though it was horrible. At least we did survive. Some of us have made life for ourselves. We did survive and have made life for ourselves, are carrying on the next generations, just my children and the next generation after that.

What message do you have for that generation?

Well, I guess the biggest message is that we really cannot be complacent. We cannot just accept inhumanity that people have to others. We cannot accept and just stand by idly and not open our voices. We need to be heard, and we cannot accept the atrocities and hate that go on between one people and the other. I think we need to speak up. We need to fight this inhumanity at all times, and this needs to be done from generation to generation to make sure this never happens again. We need a strong way we're going to be able to try to prevent this from happening again. We need to educate the generations and spend some time now explaining, telling my story to the kids. Actually, this will be a legacy that they'll have to remember what happened. Pass it on to the next generation, which will be obviously maintaining our Jewish generations, our Jewish traditions. But this will be a remembrance of what happens if the world just stands by, if people just stand by and don't do anything. Tell people who are being persecuted for whatever reason. I think we cannot just wait to let the other person do it. We've got to do it ourselves, each generation. Every generation does it in their own way. Mine, I guess, was a generation to help, to be able to do for others what people did for us to help us survive. This generation and the ones after that are going to have to remember this so that we don't go through this again. It's a horrible catastrophe. It's a horrible hell on earth that the Shoah was. I think it's, next generation, going to have to be citizens of the world. Make sure this doesn't happen to anybody anyways. And hopefully this will be a remembrance of what was what.

Do you think about the Shoah often now?

Yeah, I think certainly it's something that's become part of me. I guess it explains why I am the way I am, the importance of being educated, self-reliant, self-dependent, to work harder what you do to be successful in this way so that you can be self-dependent and not have to ever again be dependent on someone else for your, not just subsistence, but your basic survival. And so children are educated and are able to stand for themselves. Howard is a physician, he's a pediatrician. Darrin is a clinical psychologist. You know Eileen is involved in also in helping children. She's a teacher with a special education background, and indeed they work in their fields. She works helping children at the Jewish Hebrew School System here in Montreal, in Montreal, in Omaha. She's involved in tutoring kids who have learning difficulties both in the Hebrew School System, the afternoon Hebrew School System, and in regular English school system. So they're carrying on helping again other children in turn, and obviously not by accident as a direct result of what's happened to me.

I remember when I was younger, I would never cry, no matter what. And it's, I guess since 1991, when I started to find out what happened to me, that I've become more able to express my feelings, able to cry, and not feel all that bad about it, but be able to express my feelings, feel Jewish like I have been, but in a different kind of a sense, and much more fully involved, fully accepting kind of sense, instead of just being Jewish by birth. So I'm still learning about myself. As time goes by, there isn't a time where I just don't keep on meeting people who have been in Wezembeek with me, who remember me, who I didn't know until now, as I meet them from year to year. And as I learn more and more, I try to indeed read more about what was involved with the Holocaust, with the Shoah, involved in giving lectures on, and getting involved in talking about the experiences, trying to educate even the medical people here in Omaha about the medical ethics of the Shoah, of the Holocaust. So I've got more and more involved as time has gone by. And I've learned more and more about who I am, the Jew that I am, where I come from, and how I got to this point.

Well, thank you very much for sharing your story with us today.

Thank you.

This is a photograph that was taken by the Wezembeek orphanage. This was taken after everybody returned from Malines back to Wezenbeek after they were able to escape going to Auschwitz. And it includes not only the people who had gone from Wezembeek to Malines, but also includes the six of us, including myself, who were saved in Malines and taken back to Wezembeek. That's me sitting on someone's lap. I am with the white collar and the dark, outside dark shirt and who that lady is that I'm sitting on. I'm not quite sure.

This is a photo of the children in Wezembeek. The first row are the children who were saved, the extra six children that were saved in Malines. That's me on the right-hand side with the dark sweater and the white collar in the front row. And this was taken in 1942.

This is a photo that was taken in Wezenbeek in 1943. The children's group were all made to wear the Jewish Star. The lady is Mrs. Rachel Dickstein, who was the person in charge of looking after the younger boys group.

This is another photograph from Wezembeek in 43-44. And that's me in the middle and the gentleman in the front is Mr. Dickstein. That's Rachel's husband. He is deceased, not surviving the war.

This is a photograph from Israel. This is a . . . Dickstein looked after the children moved to Israel and remarried to her husband, Mr. Avidan. And when she died, in contact with them, Mr. Avidan sent me a picture of a burial site in the stone.

This is another photo from Wezembeek in 44. That's me on the left and back of some of the other children from Wezembeek. The lady in the background was actually the physician, the doctor from the orphanage.

This is another picture of me being held up by two of the older boys from Wezembeek.

This is a photo of the Wezembeek in 1943 with me at the bottom of the picture, and two of the other children of Wezembeek. In fact, the middle one is Jacob Chojnacki, Marcel Chojnacki's brother.

That's a picture of me in Wezembeek in 1943.

This is a photo of a commemorative plaque that was given to Mrs. Marie Albert Blum for all of her effort that she did for the children of Wezembeek. It was actually read as into the congressional record in New York. Everybody sent pictures who were able to do so. These are all people from Wezenbeek. That's myself with Sarah, a picture that we sent towards the plaque. That is a picture of Marcel Chojnacki, the gentleman who, as a young boy, I sat on his lap on that fateful truck ride that night on the way back to Wezembeek from Malines.

This is the photo of the family of my uncle, Hersh-Motel Jerozolimski and his wife and his two children, Jacques in the background and Victor's right in front of him, the little boy. In front of the picture of myself, I'm on the right-hand side. This was taken in 1946 while I was living with them.

This is a photo of my passport, and it's a Polish passport that I came with to Montreal, Canada in 1949.

This is a photo taken this year in May of 1995 when I went back to Belgium with my wife with Sarah. We visited Mrs. Blum sitting in the middle in the front row. The other people, there are people who were in Wezembeek with us. The gentleman standing in the back is Marcel Guttmacher, and the other people is Anna and Solomon Estagon, people who wanted to visit with me while I was in Belgium. They also were in Wezembeek, and that's Mr. Estagon in the bottom right-hand corner with Mrs. Marie Albert Blum in the middle between him and I on the left front of the picture.

This is a picture taken on October 10, 1993 when Howard our son was married to Laurie [unclear] and on the left-hand side is my daughter, Eileen, next to Laurie, and my son Darrin on the far left, and that's Sarah and I on the right side, next to our son.

This is a picture of Joey Joseph Nathan. He was born January 27 of this year 1995. This picture was taken this summer when he was about five months old, and he's our first grandson, the son of Howard and Laurie.

I'm very happy to be here with my family to introduce my wife, Sarah, and my grandson, Joey here, and my daughter, Eileen, and my son, Darrin, over here on my right, and my son, Howard, and his wife, Laurie, the parents of this little Joey here.

It started a few years ago when we all went from one of my parents and myself went to New York, and my dad went there to find out about himself, and it was something that needed to be done so that we would find out about our past and know what he went through so that we can carry on his name and we'd be able to talk to our kids and our family and explain to them what our parents went through.

This opportunity that we have to relay this information and this history before everybody who experienced this is no longer with us is very important, and it's important for the little ones, including my son, to know what happened back in the 30s and 40s and what people, some people can do to other people and to make sure that this doesn't ever happen again.

The trip to New York in May of 1991 was really a fantastic experience because Fred went there and he really didn't know anything as to what happened, what his past was, and the way everything unfolded was just unreal and how he met Marcel and how everything about that trip to New York was unbelievable, and then when we went back to Belgium in 1995 in April, April of 1995.

In May.

May and meeting Mrs. Blum and all the other people that was in Wezembeek was really, and going back to all the places that he was, seeing the home that he was in was just an unbelievable experience.

I guess it's fantastic to be able to be here, get to do this, to have come through all this, get to see the family, everybody being able to carry on and be able to be well and hopefully never to have to go through what I did, especially the future generations.