Lady Olga de Polga

Claudine Halaunbrenner was only five years old. Born in Paris in 1939, she and her older sister, Mina, were sent to the Maison d’Izieu in 1943 after their mother could no longer find a safe place to hide them. Claudine was one of the youngest children there. She had a little cloth doll that she carried everywhere—to meals, to lessons and even to bed. Each night, she would carefully tuck her doll in beside her. The older girls would braid her hair for her each morning. She was a little girl who should have been worrying about toys, friendships and growing up. But on April 6, 1944, everything changed. Gestapo officers, acting under the orders of Klaus Barbie, raided the home. Claudine was taken away with her sister Mina, the other children and the adults who cared for them. They were transported through Montluc prison in Lyon and Drancy before being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Claudine was murdered in the gas chambers shortly after arriving. She was just five years old. Her life was stolen because she was Jewish. Her little doll, her childhood and all the years she should have had were taken from her. Claudine was one of the 42 children from Izieu murdered during the Holocaust. Today, we remember her not as a number, but as a little girl who loved her doll, who had her hair braided by the older girls and who deserved a lifetime of happiness. May Claudine, Mina and all the children of Izieu never be forgotten. Never forget. Never again.