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# Holocaust Days of Remembrance: Stories of Rescue 

By The United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumDLA Distribution Public Affairs

                NEW CUMBERLAND, Pennsylvania  –              
*DLA Distribution reflects on today as Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah).  The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as our nation's annual commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent, living memorial to those victims. The following story, provided by the museum, tells the story of survivor Renee Schwalb Fritz.*

“I was put into a convent that was also located in Belgium, and some man came and picked me up, who I had never seen before. That scared me slightly. And he told me on the way that the reason for all the things that were going on was because I was Jewish which, of course, didn’t mean anything to me.  I was just too young to understand what ‘Jewish’ meant.  But that I was going to go and live in a school.  And when I got there I saw nuns, which scared me a little bit because in Europe, of course, not like today, the nuns were all in habits, and it was a very, very strict order. And he took me to the Mother Superior, and the Mother Superior tried to explain as much as she felt that I could understand, that I was going to be at the school and that I was going to be living with other children there during the day. However, those children leave at the end of the day, and I was going to be taken care of by the nuns.

 I was also told that I was going to be taught religion and that my name would be changed to Suzanne LeDent, and this was the name that I would...that I can only answer by.  I have to forget my other name, that there was no more name like that, because this was going to be something totally new and I just have to follow these rules. So I...I did. And she handed me some medals and, with a safety pin, and she told me every time that I memorized what each medal meant that I would get a new one. And I did. I started memorizing different prayers for medals and she gave me a rosary and she taught me how to do the rosary and this went on for periods of time. 

I think the most frightening part of the experience was the evenings because I was taken to what seemed like a dormitory that had miles upon miles of just corridors and they were just all partitions in between and I was put into one of these partitions that had a bed, a sink, and a huge crucifix, and one of the nuns was in charge, and I was left in this dormitory at night. That was rather scary. And I would just say my prayers.” 

*Renee was hidden there for two years, until the Germans became suspicious. The underground took Renee to a Protestant family’s farm, and then to an orphanage. After the war she was reunited with her mother, who had survived Auschwitz. Five years later they joined her father in the United States. Her story is one of the personal histories in the Holocaust Encyclopedia,ushmm.org.*

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DLADLA DistributionDefense Logistics AgencyDefense Logistics Agency DistibutionHolocaustThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum