Renee Kann Silver’s Story
Renee Kann Silver (1931- )
Renee is also a survivor that means so much to me. She was the second survivor I ever reached out to. This woman is one of my dearest friends and I thank God for Peter Feigl for recommending me the book Hidden on the Mountain, where I found Renee in the book .
Renee Ruth Kann was born on February 24, 1931 in the Saarland, Germany. She was the oldest of two. Her sister Edith was born on July 23, 1933.
Renee was four years old when her maid took her to a parade to see Hitler. She did not realize that Hitler would cause many problems for her and her family.
After Hitler came to power, they decided they had to move. One August morning they left Sarreguemines and left for safer shores.
Their mother took one car, their father, grandmother, cousins and their maid took a truck. On the way, the car that their mother was driving broke down. They left the car, but rode in the truck. They arrived at a little village and could not go any further. They found shelter on the second floor of an elderly widow’s house. They traveled still in Lorraine, but close to the Belgian border. The village that they arrived at was called Longeville. The elderly woman they rented this room from did not speak a word of German, she was French and her grandmother did not understand French, but they would commiserate with each other.
When Renee was eight years old, she wanted to be a girl scout. She did not realize at that time that some of the girl scout troops had religious affiliations. One troop she joined was called La Guide. They went on hikes, learned songs and went to church. The church was the central point of the village. At church she knelt like everyone else but refused to cross herself like all the other little girls did. It became noticeable to the Troop leader that she was not a Catholic. Eventually, Renee was kicked out of the troop, which broke her heart immensely because she really wanted to be a girl scout.
When the war was getting more serious in France, French policemen arrested Renee’s father, because he was German.
He was released shortly after his arrest.
In May of 1940, during an air raid, Renee and her sister Edith were taken from the air raid shelter by two policemen and taken home. The whole family were being arrested, including Renee’s eighty-three year old grandmother.
They were being arrested because the French thought they were spies. They were taken to a prison In Bar-Le Duc. They were put in where the police kept their horses. They slept on straw. Because of Renee’s father being parazlyed on one side of his body, he could not sleep. Renee’s father had a brain injury from fighting in WWI and was paralyzed on one side of his body because of it.
They were driven to a train station. They were put on a passenger train, not cattle cars. They had hardly anything to eat, only some bread and some water. It was because on the train they were considered “Prisionnier De Guerre,” which means in French, “Prisoners of War”.
They were on the train for eight days and eight nights. The train stopped occasionally. They arrived to a town called Oloron Sainte-Marie.
Then they were put on trucks and taken to the concentration camp, Gurs. Gurs is where Peter Feigl also went .
In Gurs, the conditions were terrible. Hardly any food, no sanitation and no running water. When they got there, Her father and their cousin Leon were on one side of the camp and her mother, Renee, Edith and their grandmother were put on another side of the camp. Renee suffered greatly. They got bed bugs, lice and fleas and there were rats. Renee never saw the rats, but her mother did. They all slept on straw mattresses. The conditions were unbearable for anyone to live.
Gurs was not intended to house thousands of people from all over the world, it was intended to house the soldiers from the Spanish Civil War.
In June of 1940, they were released from Gurs. They got a truck to take them to the nearest railroad station. Her father bought train tickets and they headed to Villeurbanne in Lyon. Her grandmother and her cousins went to Marseilles, which had a port to get them to the United States. Her Uncle who lived in Pittsburgh, PA said he would pay for the grandmother and his niece and nephew’s way to the United States, since they already had the necessary papers.
She and her sister went back to school, but little by little they saw the damage that the Vichy government was causing. There was fascims and antisemitism.
In June of 1942, Renee was supposed to get an award, but due to her being Jewish, the school announced she would not get this award because of her being Jewish. She went home and told her mother about this. Her mother did not tell her father. If her father got really upset, he had epileptic seizures.
Her mother had made arrangements for her kids to be hidden. She met a woman named Madame Dreyfus, who lived in another part of town. Madame Dreyfus was part of OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants ) (Children’s Aid Society) that originally was established in the 1930’s to help Jewish children in Russia.
Her mother told Renee and Edith that Madame Dreyfus was going to take them to the mountains the very next day. She said that they were going to the Massif Central. Renee, being an excellent geographer, knew exactly where that was. The next day, Renee’s mother packed her and her sister a knapsack filled with essentials and met Madame Dreyfus at one of the railroad stations. They said good-bye to their mother and they left for the mountains.
On the train Edith and Renee played Cat’s Cradle and they were informed that it would be best not to say where they came from or their religion.
They traveled from Lyon to Saint-Etienne and then they took a small train from there to Le-Chambon Sur Lingon . Le Chambon was a protestant village, whose inhabitants were very religious and risked everything, including their own lives to save and rescue Jewish children.
When they arrived, a family came to pick up Edith, but there was no one to pick Renee up yet. The next day, Monsieur Fourneir who was driving a mule drawn cart came to pick Renee up. They left the town of Le Chambon until they arrived practically in the middle of nowhere. The Fourneir’s had a son, named Marcel who was nineteen.
While she was staying there, other girls that were Renee’s age came to stay with the Fourniers. Mr. Fournier went into town and told Renee the news he had heard. He told her “Don’t expect to find your parents.”
This prompted Renee to leave. She packed a little bag and told the family she was on her way to see her sister, who lived not too far from where she was staying. When she got to her sister’s place, she told the family housing her that she had to get back to Lyon. The family did not question Renee. They went to the station and Renee had just enough money to buy the tickets. They got on the train and headed back to Lyon. When they arrived they took a street car to where their parents were renting an apartment. They got to the door and rang the doorbell. There was no answer.
This frightened Renee and she thought that her parents were just out running errands. She told her sister that they would wait for their parents in the park. They waited for about an hour and they went back to the apartment to try again. They rang the doorbell again, no answer, but their neighbor who was blind recognized their voices. Their neighbor had also heard what had happened to their parents. He heard that Monsieur Caussidiere had come to take them away. He and his wife were the concierges of the local municipal theater. There was a pool, a clinic and a theater. They did the cleaning for all of these facilities. They also lived on the premises. They had a daughter who was named Renee also. Renee Caussidiere and Renee were best friends.
There was to be a roundup that happened at their apartment and Monsieur Cassidiere knew that he should warn Renee’s mother and father. He told them there was one safe place for them, that they should come with him. They stayed with the Caussidere’s.
Meanwhile, Renee and Edith went over to the Caussidere’s apartment and knocked on their window. Mrs. Caussidiere came out and told Renee to go back to her apartment that she would send her mother over.
They did see their mother and their mother explained the situation and took them back to see Madame Dreyfus. Madame Dreyfus took them back to Le Chambon. Edith went back to the same family she was staying with and Renee went to a boarding house run by two women, who housed a whole group of girls Renee’s age. Renee felt more comfortable at that home. There were books and she got along well with all who lived there. When the police were on their way, they were alerted by telephone and the girls would be sent on errands to get them out of the house. On one such occasion they were not alerted and the police arrived. The girls were introduced as the women’s nieces and nothing bad happened.
In September, both girls received word that it was safe to go home. Madame Dreyfus came and took the girls home.
Their parents had gotten someone to smuggle their family to Switzerland (also where Peter Feigl ended up) . They had false papers and ID cards, with a new name and a new identity. They left with hardly anything. All of them had to learn their new names.
Eventually this smuggler did not hold up his end of the bargain. They ended up taking a small rickety bus and a car to Switzerland. The driver said that they will see three lights, to go to the one in the middle, where someone is waiting for them. While walking towards the lights, they were met by farmers who told them that they were lucky, the border patrol had just left.
They were given some food. They settled in a little empty house down the road from the farmers.
The farmers gave them breakfast and lunch. Renee and her family had to take a bus to Geneva where they could take a train to Basel. They took the bus to central Geneva where they waited for the right moment to get on a train. They arrived in Basel very late at night. They arrived at a hotel.
Soon after they arrived, the police arrived and arrested Renee and her family. They sent them to prison and interrogated her parents right away. The police wanted to put them in the Swiss version of a concentration camp. These concentration camps were not like the German camps, they were holding camps to limit refugees. But Renee’s mother pleaded with them and Renee’s father had connections in Switzerland. They were able to stay at the hotel for the time being but were also still in jeopardy of being put in the concentration camp. They found out there was a Refugee organization and they took the Kann’s in. They helped with food and clothes. Renee’s father knew a lawyer in Switzerland.
During this time, Renee got very sick and nobody could figure out what it was, until one doctor said she had contagious jaundice.
She was put into a children’s hospital, and soon enough her sister, Edith joined her in the children’s hospital. Their parents were not allowed to visit them.
Meanwhile, her parents were negotiating with the Swiss police to not put them into a concentration camp while their daughter’s were sick. Their mother found a small apartment in Basel. Within a few weeks, the girls got better and the pedricitian who vouched for them stating that these girls could not go into a concentration camp, but could remain at the apartment, Renee’s parents had to report to the Police station every saturday to tell them that they were still there and no going to do something illegal. They remained in Switzerland until the war ended.
When the war was over, the Kann’s left Switzerland, they went back to Sarreguemines, which had been completely destroyed by war.
In 1947, the Kanns emigrated to the United States. In the 1950’s Renee married a man named Arthur (Art) SIlver. He died in January of 2010. Renee has a son named Marc and three grandchildren, Samantha, Bryan and Jonathan.
Fast Forward to 2010 in April, after I interviewed Peter Feigl. He recommended a book called Hidden on the Mountain. Inside, were many stories of children who were hidden in Le Chambon. I came upon a girl sitting at a desk with her sister. This was Renee’s chapter. I found her and I interviewed her. She was my pen pal when I was going to college and in March of 2013, we finally met for the first time. She was lovely and I adore her so much . She turns ninety-one this year.
(Renee and I on March 13, 2013 in New York City, one of the happiest moments of my life.)
