Betty Berz UNESCO 2014

Betty Berz (née Sagal) was born on June 22, 1926 in Kyiv, USSR (today, Ukraine). The family—Betty, her mother Marie, her father Boris, and her younger sister Rachel—immigrated to Paris in 1929.

When war broke out in France in 1940, Betty was evacuated with other Parisian children, stayed briefly at a boarding school in Gers, then returned to Paris, where she was subjected to anti-Jewish measures, including wearing the yellow star. In June 1942, Betty and her family were warned about roundups and managed to avoid the Velodrome d’Hiver roundup. They took refuge in various places before settling in a room in the 11th arrondissement in Paris, where they stayed for two years with the Bastian family.

After the territory was liberated by U.S. armed forces and French resistance fighters in 1944, Betty’s parents engaged in a court battle to take back their apartment, which had been rented out, unbeknownst to them, during the war. In June 1991, the Bastian family was honored by Yad Vashem with the honorific Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews, including Betty.

The interview was conducted on July 24, 1996 in La Garenne-Colombes, France; interviewer: Lucie Caries; videographer: Sylvain Rigollot.

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