The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Tuesday is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, here is a holocaust story from the only Holocaust survivor in the Bahamas!

“How my grandmother married my sister’s fiancee (groom)”!

We were Austrian, not religious Jews. and we managed to flee to Belgium when the Germans annexed Austria in 1938. Holland, Belgium and northern France were attacked and occupied by the Germans in 1940.

Until 1942, the Germans in Belgium did nothing about the Jews, then no nationals of Belgium were being arrested and sent to Auschwitz, not even the Belgian Jews. How could you obtain this life saving nationality?

Of course, about one year later when they ran out of emigrant Jews, they arrested the Belgians too, but in 1942 no one knew that! Well if you marry a Belgian that will do it!

We had two unmarried females, my sister age 15, and my grandmother, age 75. Where my dad found Mr Dubreux I do not know, he was a driver for the Belgian Red Cross. He said: “I will marry any one, not exercise my conjugal rights and divorce anytime, how much will you give me?”

Well it took us three months to find out that a German girl under 16 – Austria did not exist anymore – needed a permit from Berlin to marry. At that time we had a paid up groom on our hands, yes, instead of sis, he married my grandma!

When my parents were arrested and died in Auschwitz, I managed to hide my sister in the cloister school in Waterloo and today she must be the only Holocaust surviving Carmelite nun in the world!

Grandma, Madame Dubreux, survived the Holocaust, but on her grave in the Viennese Jewish cemetery I managed to inscribe the names of her eight graveless children, my parents included.

WALTER ABSIL

Nassau,

January 25, 2015.