France infamously capitulated to the Nazis during World War II. However not all of the French people followed their government.
Many were counted as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem after the war. Some helped Ruth Kapp Hartz, a young Jewish girl in southern France, conceal herself, her identity and even her name within a small French village.
Their story is now being told in “Hidden,” a musical premiering at Gratz College on Sept. 6.
Kapp Hartz, a Jenkintown resident and Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel member, will attend the premiere. “Hidden” was written by Cheltenham-based musicians and songwriters Jenny and David Heitler-Klevans, also Jewish.
It will run on Sept. 6, 7 and 20 at Gratz at 8 p.m. Subsequent performances will take place on Sept. 21 and 22 at 2 p.m. Feldscher Horwitz Public Relations, the PR representatives for the show, describe it as a “fully-staged production.”
Tickets are $30 per person and $25 per person for groups of 10 or more. They can be found at onthestage.tickets/show/m7-productions.
“Many people know about the Holocaust as it relates to the death camps and the people who died and the people who were tortured and murdered,” said Linda Glazerman Roeder, who plays Ruth. “But not too many people know about the children who were saved, especially in France.”
Kapp Hartz talked a little about her rescuers, the characters in the musical, to the Jewish Exponent.
Her Older Cousin Jeannette
France surrendered to Germany in June 1940. After, the Nazis set up concentration camps on French soil.
Kapp Hartz and her family planned to go into hiding. She remembers her older cousin Jeannette telling her she had to change her name to Renee.
“I asked why,” Kapp Hartz recalled. “She said, ‘Don’t ask questions.’”
They arrived in the small village and were given a room below another family’s home.
The Fedou Family
Kapp Hartz and her family stayed with the Fedous. Mr. Fedou was in the resistance, according to Kapp Hartz. He had told her father that he had seen a Jewish family pulled out of town in a truck. From that day on, he “promised we’d do everything in our power to protect them,” Kapp Hartz said.
Lucette
Lucette was one of two teenage daughters in the Fedou family who looked after Ruth, or Renee, according to Kapp Hartz. She gave Renee her doll and picked her up from school.
“On those days when my parents thought it was safe, I would go to school and Lucette would come and pick me up,” Kapp Hartz said.
Her Classmate
Kapp Hartz had a classmate who said to her that she always looked hungry. The classmate suggested that Renee visit this woman at the end of the village who had a vegetable garden.
The young Jewish girl went one day after school.
The Valat Family
The woman at the end of the village, whose last name was Valat, opened the door and said, “You must be a refugee girl.”
Renee went in. Madame Valat told her to open her skirt. Renee obliged and got bread, cheese and cauliflower. She also spotted a bottle of wine on the windowsill and informed Madame Valat that her father wanted wine for Shabbat. The woman told the young girl that the bottle came from before the war.
“But I’ll give you a bottle,” said the woman, according to Kapp Hartz.
“I said, ‘Here’s my doll,’” recalled the survivor.
“She said, ‘Oh no, no, no,’” Kapp Hartz recalled.
But the Valats gave Renee’s family more than just wine. When Nazi raids became more frequent, the family had to hide underground.
“My parents asked them one day, ‘Could we spend the night in your basement?’” Kapp Hartz remembered. “One day turned into days which turned into weeks which turned into months.”
“We had to live in very narrow spaces; darkness; complete silence. The slightest noise could give you and the people who protected you away. Any people who helped Jews were also arrested and sent to concentration camps,” Kapp Hartz said.
One day, the daughter saw her mother packing “the few things I had,” she recalled. The mother told the daughter she wanted her to get some fresh air.
Then a lady arrived in the village in a car. No one in the village had a car.
Madame Kahn
The woman was Madame Kahn, and she drove and drove.
She kept going until she reached a building. A lady came out in a black veil, black dress and black shoes. Mother Superior was the mother of the convent. That was where young Renee played that day.
“My parents had prearranged that,” Kapp Hartz said.
“Hidden”
After the war, Ruth moved to Paris and graduated from Sorbonne University with a degree in biochemistry. In 1958, she emigrated to the United States, met and married Harry Hartz and raised a family of her own.
For 22 years, she taught French language and culture at Springside High School in Chestnut Hill. But she didn’t publish her memoir, “Your Name is Renee,” until 1993. And she didn’t start speaking in schools until the early 2000s.
That was true of many hidden children, according to Kapp Hartz.
“We didn’t call ourselves survivors. We didn’t go to camps. We were psychologically and emotionally in hiding. Life had to go on after the war,” she said. “Seeing my ‘Hidden’ childhood come to life at this stage of my life fills me with tremendous gratitude.”