The house: refuge of the children 1943-44

Miron Zlatin organised and managed the home on a daily basis. Sabine Zlatin was in charge of contact with the outside world. She travelled between Izieu and Montpellier, where she worked as a social worker and helped several families.

There was a group of adults, Jewish or not, to supervise the children.

Léa Feldblum, Lucie Feiger, Mina Friedler with Lucienne, her five-year-old daughter; Dr Suzanne Reifman, her son Claude and her parents Eva and Moïse, replaced, as of September 1943, her brother Léon Reifman, a medical student and former instructor/carer in Palavas-les-Flots. After helping create the children’s home, he left Izieu because he was wanted for the Service du travail obligatoire. He returned for the Easter holidays on 6 April 1944, the very day of the roundup.

Carers or members of the child welfare organisation helped out and worked at the home for several months, including: cook Philippe Dehan and his mother; Marcelle Ajzenberg; and the couple Rachel and Serge Pludermacher.

Sabine Zlatin’s friends also came to help: Berthe Mehring, Emma Blanc and, during the summer of 1943, Paulette and Renée Pallarés, Sabine Zlatin’s young neighbours in Montpellier, aged 17 and 19.

Sabine Zlatin

Sabine Zlatin was not there on the day of the roundup.

As soon as she heard the news, she tried to save the children. She went to Vichy and then to Paris, where she contacted the Red Cross. In vain.

She then joined the Resistance in Paris. She went by the name of Jeanne Verdavoire and worked with the social welfare service of the Mouvement de Libération Nationale [National Liberation Movement].

When France was liberated, she was appointed head of the hotel department of the Lutetia Centre and was in charge of receiving the deportees.

From 1945 onwards, she held alive the memory of the round up of Izieu. She testified at the Barbie trial in 1987. Along with others involved in the history of the Izieu children’s home, at the end of the trial, she founded the Izieu Memorial Museum association, which was behind the memorial being created in 1994. She died in 1996 in Paris.

Léa Feldblum

Lea Feldblum is the only survivor among the deportees.

When the prisoners were released from Auschwitz, a winding path led her from Odessa to Montpellier. She boarded the Exodus at Sète. After a difficult journey, she managed to reach Palestine. In 1987, she returned to France to testify at the Klaus Barbie trial. She died two years later in Tel Aviv.

Léon Reifman

Léon Reifman was the only survivor of the 6 April 1944 roundup.

Arriving at the home that morning, he managed to jump out a window and hide in a bush. In the evening, thanks to the Perticoz family, the children’s home’s neighbours, he left Izieu to be hidden with a family from Belley. He testified at the Klaus Barbie trial. He died in 1994 in Périgueux.

Sabine and Miron Zlatin’s journey

Sabine Zlatin was born in Chwast, Warsaw (Poland) on 13 January 1907. She was the last of twelve children. Her father was an architect. No longer tolerating both a suffocating family environment and anti-Semitism, she decided to leave her native country in the mid-1920s. She went from Danzig to Köenigsberg to Berlin to Brussels before arriving in France, in Nancy, in around 1925. She then studied art history. She met a young Jewish student from Russia, Miron Zlatin. Born in Orcha in 1904, from a wealthy family, he was studying for a degree in agronomic studies at the University of Nancy. On 8 October 1928, they got married in Warsaw.

In 1929, Miron and Sabine Zlatin acquired a poultry farm in Landas in northern France. After a rocky start, the farm proved to be a success. They gained French citizenship on 26 July 1939.

In September 1939, war broke out. Sabine Zlatin decided to take military nursing training courses at the Red Cross in Lille. In May 1940, faced with the advancing German troops, the couple took refuge in Montpellier. Sabine Zlatin became a Red Cross nurse at the Lauwe Military Hospital. Dismissed because of anti-Semitic laws, she then became involved with the Jewish humanitarian organisation, “Œuvre de secours aux enfants” (OSE). The rest of their journey led them to Izieu, in the Ain region.

After the roundup of the Izieu children’s home on 6 April 1944, Sabine Zlatin returned to Paris, where she joined the Resistance.

When France was liberated, she was appointed as head hotelier of the Lutetia Centre, where they organised deportees’ return and reception. In July 1945, Sabine Zlatin learned that her husband and the children of the Izieu home would not return after being deported.

After the Lutetia Centre was closed in September 1945, she settled in Paris permanently. She carried on painting, signing her paintings under the name Yanka, while she also sold books about the performing arts.

Since 1945, Sabine Zlatin has never stopped fighting for the memory of the round up of Izieu and to prevent it from being forgotten. As a witness at the Klaus Barbie trial, she was a key figure in the creation of the memorial inaugurated in Izieu in April 1994.

Names of the 44 children and 7 carers rounded up on 6 April 1944:

• Sami Adelsheimer, 5 years old, born in Germany, deported by convoy 71
• Hans Ament, 10 years old, born in Austria, deported by convoy 75
• Nina Aronowicz, 11 years old, born in Belgium, deported by convoy 71
• Max-Marcel Balsam, 12 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Jean-Paul Balsam, 10 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Esther Benassayag, 12 years old, born in Algeria, deported by convoy 71
• Elie Benassayag, 10 years old, born in Algeria, deported by convoy 71
• Jacob Benassayag, 8 years old, born in Algeria, deported by convoy 71
• Jacques Benguigui, 12 years old, born in Algeria, deported by convoy 71
• Jean-Claude Benguigui, 5 years old, born in Algeria, deported by convoy 71
• Richard Benguigui, 7 years old, born in Algeria, deported by convoy 71
• Barouk-Raoul Bentitou, 12 years old, born in Algeria, deported by convoy 71
• Majer Bulka, 13 years old, born in Poland, deported by convoy 71
• Albert Bulka, 4 years old, born in Belgium, deported by convoy 71
• Lucienne Friedler, 5 years old, born in Belgium, deported by convoy 76
• Egon Gamiel, 9 years old, born in Germany, deported by convoy 71
• Liliane Gerenstein, 11 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Maurice Gerenstein, 13 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Henri-Chaïm Goldberg, 13 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Joseph Goldberg, 12 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Claudine Halaunbrenner, 5 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 76
• Mina Halaunbrenner, 8 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 76
• Georgy Halpern, 8 years old, born in Austria, deported by convoy 71
• Arnold Hirsch, 17 years old, born in Germany, deported by convoy 73
• Isidore Kargeman, 10 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Liane Krochmal, 6 years old, born in Austria, deported by convoy 71
• Renate Krochmal, 8 years old, born in Austria, deported by convoy 71
• Max Leiner, 8 years old, born in Germany, deported by convoy 71
• Claude Levan-Reifman, 10 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Fritz Loebmann, 15 years old, born in Germany, deported by convoy 71
• Alice-Jacqueline Luzgart, 10 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 75
• Marcel Mermelstein, 7 years old, born in Belgium, deported by convoy 74
• Paula Mermelstein, 10 years old, born in Belgium, deported by convoy 74
• Theodor Reis, 16 years old, born in Germany, deported by convoy 73
• Gilles Sadowski, 8 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Martha Spiegel, 10 years old, born in Austria, deported by convoy 71
• Senta Spiegel, 9 years old, born in Austria, deported by convoy 71
• Sigmund Springer, 8 years old, born in Austria, deported by convoy 71
• Sarah Szulklaper, 11 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 71
• Herman Tetelbaum, 10 years old, born in Belgium, deported by convoy 71
• Max Tetelbaum, 12 years old, born in Belgium, deported by convoy 71
• Charles Weltner, 9 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 75
• Otto Wertheimer, 12 years old, born in Germany, deported by convoy 71
• Emile Zuckerberg, 5 years old, born in Belgium, deported by convoy 71
• Lucie Feiger, 49 years old, born in France, deported by convoy 72
• Mina Friedler, 32 years old, born in Poland, deported by convoy 76
• Sarah Levan-Reifman, 36 years old, born in Romania, deported by convoy 71
• Eva Reifman, 61 years old, born in Romania, deported by convoy 71
• Moïse Reifman, 62 years old, born in Romania, deported by convoy 71
• Miron Zlatin, 39 years old, born in Russia, deported by convoy 73 and
• Léa (Laja) Feldblum, 25 years old, born in Poland, deported by convoy 71, only survivor

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