For the majority of us, world history is something recorded in history books – interesting stories about the past but not things that directly affect us. But then there are people whose life stories completely reflect world events.
One such person is Helene Joffe – whom many former Herzlians will remember as ‘Madame Joffe’. A seemingly thoroughly French woman, Helene’s family background had very little to do with France; it also had nothing to do with South Africa, the country that she has lived in for close on 70 years. It was the impact of world events that led her family on the route that fashioned her life.
World War II
Those who know this sprightly almost 90-year-old may have heard about Helene’s early years when, as a child of eight, she went into hiding in a rural environment in France, a move geared to protect her life during the Nazi occupation of southern France. “I had had a wonderful life with my family in Marseille,” she explains, “but, after the occupation and the rounding up of the Jews of Marseille by the Germans in 1943, working with the Resistance, my brother, aged 17, found a home for my younger brother and me in a more remote part of the country, where we were unlikely to be identified as Jews by the German occupiers or their French collaborators.”
Separated from her mother, father and other siblings for over two years, Helene was looked after by the French Resistance for the period 1943 to 1945. As a young child, she enjoyed going to Church since it offered a sense of security. “But I missed my parents and the rest of the family very much,” she says. She had to take on a French name, since her own name, Helene Mindel, was too obviously a Jewish name and would have placed her at great risk.
During the War years, Helene lost over 40 members of her extended family from a variety of places in Europe, such as Lithuania and The Crimea. Tragically, this included her much-loved father, who was taken by the Germans to Drancy internment camp, which became the camp from which many of France’s Jews were deported to extermination camps. “When my father was arrested, I had no idea that I would never see him again. It was such a shock to discover later on that he had been murdered not very long after being taken.”
Earlier times
While Helene appears to be completely French, steeped in generations of French culture, her family’s arrival in France was the result of a chance event. In fact, her father’s family’s origins stem from Austria, while her mother was of Lithuanian Jewish descent. Her father’s family were Austrian Jewish bankers, and her grandfather – who carried the title of ‘Baron’ – was sent to The Crimea in the late 19th century to establish a branch of the family’s banking operations in Russia. Although the town he settled in, Theodosia, did not permit Jewish settlement, Abraham Mindel was allowed in so that he, like other foreign Jews elsewhere, could pro-vide money needed by the authorities.
“Along with the noble status, my grandfather amassed significant wealth, which meant that my father did not have to take on a profession or learn how to make a living,” Helene explains. Born in 1893, her father was in his 20s during the Russian Revolution and, being a nobleman, he sided with the White Russian forces, fighting with the Whites during the Civil War. “By 1920, with the Red forces winning the War, it became clear to my father that he had to flee Russia. He planned to go to Winnipeg, Canada, to join some of his brothers. Crossing the Black Sea by boat, he arrived in Constantinople (today’s Istanbul), and his wife and first child joined him there some time later. Without a profession behind him – and with now useless rubles in his hands – he could not make a living. And all the family wealth was gone.”
Eventually, her parents and their one child, who had been born in Theodosia, started making their way to Canada. But, when their boat stopped en route in Marseille, France, the authorities would not allow the family to continue their journey, citing a visa problem. And so the family was forced to disembark, and then remained in Marseille for the rest of their lives, becoming French citizens. Helene, her sister and two other brothers were born during the family’s stay there.
While liberation from Nazi oppression in 1945 was enthusiastically welcomed, France was a country struggling with economic crisis, a lack of food supplies, and severe unemployment. “When I became a young adult, there wasn’t much on the horizon for me, so I accepted the offer from an uncle to come to South Africa for a few months,” she explains. Here she met her husband, got married, and remained until today. A well-known figure in the field of French language teaching, Helene worked for many years at a number of Cape Town schools.
BREAKING NEWS: Helene Joffe was recently advised that she is to be awarded a National Order of the Legion of Honour (French: Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur), the highest award of merit made in France. The award reflects her contribution to the French language, as well as the role her family played in the liberation of France, since some family members fought with the French Resistance.
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