Ruth Hartz, an adjunct professor of French at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania, spoke at Emory University on October 17, 2006. A holocaust survivor, Hartz’s childhood experience is the subject of the book Your Name is Renee, by Stacy Cretzmeyer.

Hartz’s lecture titled “Reflections of a Hidden Child in Nazi-Occupied France and an Exploration of How World War II has Shaped the Heart, Mind, and Soul of Contemporary France,” was introduced by Deborah Lipstadt, director of the Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies and Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory.

“No matter how good a course I teach, no matter how stimulating or intellectually challenging a course I teach, nothing compares to the lecture in which I bring in some one who has survived this trauma, who can say, ‘This is my story, this is what happened to me,’ said Lipstadt in her introduction.

“As we enter the 63rd year of the end of the war, the voice of the witness becomes more and more precious and more and more of a rare voice, simply because of the tyranny of the clock; there is no escaping the tyrrany of time. The ability of people to speak in the first person singular is something that we should value because we won’t have it forever and ever that is for sure.”

During World War II, four-year-old Hartz was hidden with her family in Nazi-occupied southern France. In addition to being sheltered by sympathetic villagers, she spent six months in a small Catholic convent to avoid capture by both the Vichy French Police and the Gestapo. Through unusual good fortune, she and her parents survived the war and returned to Paris shortly thereafter.

Hartz spoke about how the hidden children represent a segment of holocaust survivors who have been largely ignored, their stories forgotten until recently. “The hidden children had to embrace silence, seek memory and comprehend their identity in a morally distorted world bent on their destruction. Discouraged from speaking about their experiences after the war, the hidden children continued their silence.” Not until recently, have these grown children begun to speak out, the first gathering of “the hidden children” occurred in New York City in 1991. Mrs. Hartz was among the 2,000 survivors present. Hartz echoed the sentiments put forth by Lipstadt in her introduction.

“Now that we are speaking out, after so many years, we the hidden children, have added and can still add to our collective memory. Not just the names of towns and villages, but the names of people. Not just statistics, but feelings. Not just the murderer’s story, but the stories of those who hid and saved us.”

Hartz spoke warmly about her biological family as well as the Fedou family in Toulouse, France who took care of her and her parents during the years of World War II. After a year with the Fedou family, Hartz was sent to live as a convent orphan and did not know if her parents, hiding in a cellar, were alive or dead. After the war, Hartz’s father discovered that his entire family had perished in death camps and her maternal grandfather, who survived the war, died six months after being reunited with the family, due to complications from malnutrition in the camps.

In 1969, Hartz and her husband returned to Artez where she was reunited with Mrs. Fedou and her daughters, for what was a very emotional reunion. “We cried for about 45 minutes,” said Hartz, “I said to Mme Fedou, ‘You saved my life, what can I do for you?’ She replied, ‘The biggest gift you can give me is that you came to see me and that you are married to an American!’”

Hartz spoke for over 30 minutes then took a number of questions from the audience. More then 100 people attended the lecture and many remained to purchase copies of Hartz’s book, Your Name is Renee, which Hartz then signed.

Hartz is a member of the Pennsylvania Holocaust Education Council, the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) and the Alliance Francaise. She conducts workshops locally and nationally on teaching the lessons of the Holocaust.
The lecture was co-sponsored by The Halle Institute Speaker Series, the Alliance Francaise, the Department of Jewish Studies, and the Department of French and Italian of Emory University.