Children of the Holocaust: Stories of Survival - Paula Bronstein

Paula Bronstein b. 1937 in Eindhoven, Netherlands

At the age of five, her parents put her in the care of a Dutch couple in Eindhoven, who pretended to be her relatives and hid her during the Nazi occupation.
0:00 - Before the War
1:03 - German Occupation of Holland 1942
3:59 - Hidden Child
17:07 - Liberation
24:45 - Life After the War
27:15 - Jewish Identity
32:14 - Relationship with Parents
47:11 - Holocaust Survivor
50:19 - Faith and Insights

[busymoms]

Thank you so very much for sharing your story

[sweipamelat.]

thank you for sharing your story. My heart cried for that little child Paula who was raised with Tanta and kept quiet and obedient...Thank God that He was there to make things turn out safe for you so that you didn't get caught and be sent away.

[lollydoodles-ejqx]

There are hardly any words to describe how hearing your testimony knocked me sideways. When you said i.m first and second generation, that your parents were broken. That your God is in your heart. ❤❤❤

[gonefishing]

Bless you Paula, you have suffered and I am so sorry but I don’t think your parents meant to be cruel, I just think they didn’t know or what to do. I’m sure they loved you deeply in their own way. 🙏🙏🙏👵🇦🇺

[taiikomochiyuurichin]

It is totally understandable Paula's outcome. Sounds like her parents were probably already mentally damaged before the war and that experience just hardened what possibilities could result from it. Parents that cannot connect with their children are usually damaged in some way and if they do not actively change that it is up to the child to create their own cure if that is at all possible. She is in a difficult situation.

[Sad_Bumper_Sticker]

So sad her parents sounded emotionally unavailable, emotionally frigid. The life in hiding with the Dutch couple and paradoxically the German Nazi soldier, was a modicum of childhood normalcy to her. Such a happy ending she found her husband with whom she feels emotionally seen. The Child Survivor groups are so important especially to survivors who were taught to never speak about the trauma of the holocaust.