Book About Jewsish Families Not Finding Their Families Again
RENO, NEVADA — Leon Malmed'due south childhood memories came flooding back when he read virtually President Donald Trump'southward "nada tolerance" clearing policy in the newspapers.
He notwithstanding remembers the day his parents were taken from him.
"That is the only memory that I have from my babyhood," Malmed, at present lxxx, said in his South Lake Tahoe, Nevada, abode. "I retrieve hanging on to the dress of my female parent and crying.
"That prototype just stayed all my life, and that was 76 years ago."
Malmed and his sis, Rachel Epstein, are survivors of the Holocaust. Their parents, Srul and Chana Malmed, died at Auschwitz concentration camp.
In recent months, Trump's crackdown on those illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border led to the separation of more than 2,500 children from their parents. Although most of the families have since been reunited, Malmed worries about the impact it volition have on the children.
"Beingness separated from your parents is a horrible, horrible feeling," Malmed said. "It's really difficult for anyone who hasn't gone through that to understand.
"It stays with you and it lingers with yous and yous never have closure."
The immigration crackdown led to the separation of 2,654 children from their parents after crossing the southwest edge. Parents were taken to immigration detention centers or federal prison to await deportation hearings.
Every bit of August 24, the government has reunited 2,126 children with their parents or other sponsors, according to a Department of Justice update. The largest remaining group: 343 cases in which the parents were deported.
Still, Malmed, a retired engineer, said he worries those children will exist traumatized from that experience.
"Merely to think that these children would be separated from their parents," Malmed said. "Fifty-fifty if y'all are 4 or 12 or 16, you're still separated from your parents without knowing what'southward going to happen to you.
"I said to myself, I have to talk well-nigh it."
Malmed was iv-years-one-time when he last saw his parents. His sister was ten.
"I may not remember what I ate yesterday, but unfortunately, I remember every detail of what happened so," Epstein, 85, said in a phone interview from her home in Long Island, New York.
At about five a.m. July 19, 1942, French constabulary knocked at the door of the Malmeds' flat in Compiègne, France.
June 27:Poland reverses course on disputed Holocaust law
"They asked our parents to accompany them to police headquarters without telling them why and how long they would be detained," Malmed said.
The French police had received orders from the German Nazis to pick upwardly every Jew born exterior France. Their parents had immigrated from Poland 11 years earlier to escape the anti-Semitism brewing at that place.
"Our parents didn't know what to do with us," Malmed said.
The family unit's Christian neighbors, Henri and Suzanne Ribouleau, and then did something that likely saved the children's lives.
"They said, 'Do not worry Mr. and Mrs. Malmed, we volition take care of your children until you lot return.'
"They were taken away and we never saw our parents again," Leon Malmed said.
"After the war, people told u.s.a. that my begetter was going to the police force station screaming and pulling his hair out of his caput," Epstein said. "He kept saying, 'My children, my children.'"
Malmed and Epstein lived with the Ribouleaus and their ii sons for five years. Eventually, they were adopted into the family unit.
"They knew what could happen to them because if y'all harbor Jewish people, information technology was decease," Epstein said. "They could've been arrested and their children, their sons, everybody could have been killed."
Malmed and Epstein'southward female parent probable died shortly afterward arriving at Auschwitz.
"Our mother was non tattooed on arrival," Malmed said. "It meant that she either died during the transport or she was gassed or killed on arrival."
Their father died just a few months earlier Auschwitz was liberated by the Russian army in January 1945. Malmed and Epstein would not find out until decades later what had happened to their parents.
August two:Ivanka Trump calls father's immigrant family separation policy 'low bespeak' for administration
Somewhen, Epstein immigrated to Brooklyn where she married and had children. Malmed didn't see or hear from his sister for 13 years. In 1964, he moved to America with $300 in his pocket.
Malmed said the feeling of losing his parents lingered, and he never felt any closure.
"Being separated from your parents is a horrible, horrible feeling," he said. "Information technology's really difficult for anyone who hasn't gone through that to empathize."
Malmed said he thinks about his parents near every day, specially at present later reading reports nearly the zilch tolerance policy.
"It was hard to believe it," Malmed said. "Information technology brought back all my memories when nosotros were separated. My sister and I were non put in cages as they are doing today. We stayed with people who loved us and we learned to love. So, it was very different.
"To me, it's equivalent to kidnapping. To me, information technology's equivalent to offense against humanity."
Epstein, who is a Trump supporter, said it isn't fair to compare the Holocaust to the recent wave of family unit separations.
August 24:Trump team inching closer to reunifying all separated migrant families
"When we were taken away from our parents, it was very different," Epstein said. Other Jewish children were not as lucky as she was. "Those children went to decease."
Epstein said she doesn't believe a similar effect could ever occur in the U.S.
"Nobody here would always practise that. There's no Hitler," she said. "When the children were taken away because of Trump, of class they suffered for being taken away from their parents. Information technology'due south a horrible thing. But they weren't put to their death."
Still, both Malmed and Epstein said it was important for them to share their story with others. They said they didn't want people to forget the Holocaust, and then they speak at churches, in schools and at other events.
Malmed wrote a book about his life, and the siblings accept been interviewed for documentaries.
Follow Marcella Corona on Twitter: @Marcella_Anahi; Contributing: Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/08/31/holocaust-survivors-pain-family-separation-never-goes-away/1159159002/