Dina Rothstein Leiser and her brother escaped the Holocaust when the small French farming community of Souil hid them from the Nazis in 1942.
She lived in Paris, but from the time she was 5, she and her brother spent the summers staying with the Jules Caquineau family at their Souil farm.
In 1942, when Mrs. Leiser was 15 and had to wear a yellow star for the Nazis to identify her as a Jew, she fled to Souil, where her younger brother had preceded her.
The farm family she stayed with had a son who was a police inspector on the Paris police force. He had arranged for her to flee with non-Jewish children going on vacation. Several other Jewish children also fled to Souil. Later in 1942, the Nazis began rounding up all French Jews for the death camps. The police inspector warned Mrs. Leiser's mother, who also fled to Souil. Mrs. Leiser's father died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The remarkable thing about her escape, she would say later, was that the entire village, including the police, knew she and her brother were Jewish. Yet no one in the Catholic village revealed the secret to the Germans, even though the Nazis periodically came to the village to seek Jews.
Through the years, she maintained a relationship with the village and its people.
Mrs. Leiser died of cancer Friday at her home in University Heights. She was 66.
She was a supervisor at the office of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland.
Survivors include her husband, Alvin; son, Maurice of Cleveland Heights; brother, Nathan Rothstein of Basking Ridge, N.J.; and two grandchildren.
Services will be at 1 p.m. today at the Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz funeral home, 1985 S. Taylor Rd., Cleveland Heights.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH) - Sunday, December 5, 1993
clipped from Genealogybank.com
She lived in Paris, but from the time she was 5, she and her brother spent the summers staying with the Jules Caquineau family at their Souil farm.
In 1942, when Mrs. Leiser was 15 and had to wear a yellow star for the Nazis to identify her as a Jew, she fled to Souil, where her younger brother had preceded her.
The farm family she stayed with had a son who was a police inspector on the Paris police force. He had arranged for her to flee with non-Jewish children going on vacation. Several other Jewish children also fled to Souil. Later in 1942, the Nazis began rounding up all French Jews for the death camps. The police inspector warned Mrs. Leiser's mother, who also fled to Souil. Mrs. Leiser's father died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The remarkable thing about her escape, she would say later, was that the entire village, including the police, knew she and her brother were Jewish. Yet no one in the Catholic village revealed the secret to the Germans, even though the Nazis periodically came to the village to seek Jews.
Through the years, she maintained a relationship with the village and its people.
Mrs. Leiser died of cancer Friday at her home in University Heights. She was 66.
She was a supervisor at the office of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland.
Survivors include her husband, Alvin; son, Maurice of Cleveland Heights; brother, Nathan Rothstein of Basking Ridge, N.J.; and two grandchildren.
Services will be at 1 p.m. today at the Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz funeral home, 1985 S. Taylor Rd., Cleveland Heights.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH) - Sunday, December 5, 1993
clipped from Genealogybank.com
Dina Rothstein Leiser and her brother escaped the Holocaust when the small French farming community of Souil hid them from the Nazis in 1942.
She lived in Paris, but from the time she was 5, she and her brother spent the summers staying with the Jules Caquineau family at their Souil farm.
In 1942, when Mrs. Leiser was 15 and had to wear a yellow star for the Nazis to identify her as a Jew, she fled to Souil, where her younger brother had preceded her.
The farm family she stayed with had a son who was a police inspector on the Paris police force. He had arranged for her to flee with non-Jewish children going on vacation. Several other Jewish children also fled to Souil. Later in 1942, the Nazis began rounding up all French Jews for the death camps. The police inspector warned Mrs. Leiser's mother, who also fled to Souil. Mrs. Leiser's father died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The remarkable thing about her escape, she would say later, was that the entire village, including the police, knew she and her brother were Jewish. Yet no one in the Catholic village revealed the secret to the Germans, even though the Nazis periodically came to the village to seek Jews.
Through the years, she maintained a relationship with the village and its people.
Mrs. Leiser died of cancer Friday at her home in University Heights. She was 66.
She was a supervisor at the office of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland.
Survivors include her husband, Alvin; son, Maurice of Cleveland Heights; brother, Nathan Rothstein of Basking Ridge, N.J.; and two grandchildren.
Services will be at 1 p.m. today at the Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz funeral home, 1985 S. Taylor Rd., Cleveland Heights.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH) - Sunday, December 5, 1993
clipped from Genealogybank.com
She lived in Paris, but from the time she was 5, she and her brother spent the summers staying with the Jules Caquineau family at their Souil farm.
In 1942, when Mrs. Leiser was 15 and had to wear a yellow star for the Nazis to identify her as a Jew, she fled to Souil, where her younger brother had preceded her.
The farm family she stayed with had a son who was a police inspector on the Paris police force. He had arranged for her to flee with non-Jewish children going on vacation. Several other Jewish children also fled to Souil. Later in 1942, the Nazis began rounding up all French Jews for the death camps. The police inspector warned Mrs. Leiser's mother, who also fled to Souil. Mrs. Leiser's father died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The remarkable thing about her escape, she would say later, was that the entire village, including the police, knew she and her brother were Jewish. Yet no one in the Catholic village revealed the secret to the Germans, even though the Nazis periodically came to the village to seek Jews.
Through the years, she maintained a relationship with the village and its people.
Mrs. Leiser died of cancer Friday at her home in University Heights. She was 66.
She was a supervisor at the office of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland.
Survivors include her husband, Alvin; son, Maurice of Cleveland Heights; brother, Nathan Rothstein of Basking Ridge, N.J.; and two grandchildren.
Services will be at 1 p.m. today at the Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz funeral home, 1985 S. Taylor Rd., Cleveland Heights.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH) - Sunday, December 5, 1993
clipped from Genealogybank.com
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