Benno Linderberg: " We should have people to bear witness of the Holocaust.There should be no hatred in the world, and there should be no reason to have anti-Semitism. We should live in peace. It is a killing world, and it is frightening each day we see innocents being killed. It is incredible that my entire family survived". Although my parents were Polish,I grew up in Germany. where we lived an affluent life. My father was a textile merchant, and we were religious but well assimilated into the town. In January 1933. Hitler came to power. and life changed. My father. knowing of anti-Semitism from Poland. sent all of our valuable belongings to Antwerp, Belgium. My brother and I were sent to Hamburg and pretended not to be Jewish. We received papers to go to America as a family but were stuck in Belgium with our transit papers. Life in Antwerp was good until the Germans invaded Holland and Belgium. My father and mother escaped to Paris. But my brother and I could not get through the border and remained in Antwerp. We had to move to Brussels until May 1942, when our parents went into hiding with Gentile families. Under false papers, I smuggled myself to Nice and tried to join the Free Armed Forces of Africa. but I was arrested. I was sent to a concentration camp but escaped. I was able to get my father and mother freed. and they were reunited. While in Nice. I was sheltered by two French women. I was arrested in Vichy and sent to prison. but escaped the Nazis again. Though I spent time as a slave laborer. I ended as an officer of the French resistance in St. Gilles du Gard. On Armistice Day, November 11, 1945. I walked the Champs-Elysees with the Resistance as a captain. I was reunited with my parents in Belgium and learned that all the Lindenberg family survived. Benno met his wife in Paris, and they were married and have two sons and four grandchildren. They immigrated to the United States where he established a men's clothing manufacturing business and was listed in Who's Who of American Business. They are now retired and living in Boca Raton.
