Georgette Brinberg was born in 1938 in Villerupt, France to Polish parents. When the Germanys invaded the North-East of France, the town was bombed and had to be evacuated. Georgette and her family went to Paris, where her father, who managed to salvage some goods from his shop, became a street vendor. In 1941 he was called to the police station and despite his wife’s protests, he presented himself. He was taken to the Beaune-la-Rolande transit camp and then deported to Auschwitz in June 1942, where he was murdered.
During the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup of Jews in July 1942, Georgette, her sister, and their mother were taken to the Vélodrôme d’Hiver. When the adults were separated from the children, Georgette’s mother was forced on one bus, while Georgette and her sister were sent on another. The mother was deported to Auschwitz and was murdered. The sisters escaped from their bus thanks to a French policeman who told them to run away. They somehow managed to get to a village called Morée where they were hid in the loft of a house until the end of the war. Georgette and her sister were raised as Catholics and nobody in the village knew that they were Jewish.
After liberation they returned to Paris and found their grandmother with whom Georgette immigrated to Israel in 1949. Her sister was married in France, moved to Canada and brought Georgette to live with her in 1955. Georgette settled in Montreal where she worked as an accountant, was married in 1957 and has three children and six grandchildren. Georgette is a volunteer Speaker at the Montreal Holocaust Museum, where she shares her story with school groups.
