The Review

Issue date: 10/23/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Courtesy of Joel F. Glazier Holocaust survivor Henri Parens addressed an audience of more than 150 on Sunday evening.

When Holocaust survivor Henri Parens took the stage at the Delaware Theatre Company in Wilmington Sunday night, the applause of the more than 150 people in attendance gave way to a foreboding silence.

Parens, a 78-year-old native of Poland, said he was 11 years old when the Nazis attacked Belgium in May 1940, forcing him and his mother to escape to the unoccupied territory in southern France. This effort proved to be futile, however, as they were rounded up and put in a detention camp in Toulouse before being transported to a concentration camp called Rivesaltes.

"The Rivesaltes barracks were one large open box," he said. "Dormitory, eating place, dwelling place - all packed in one area - our beds serving all furniture purposes."

Parens said he slept on a straw-filled mattress and was issued a coarse wool blanket. Making fires was prohibited inside the barracks, so he and others kept warm huddling close and using their own body heat.

Meals at the camp were meager, but the prisoners made the most of them, Parens said.

"In the mornings, we got one piece of bread, at times with one spoon of watery brown syrup, probably an attempt to make the bread more palpable," he said. "But you know it really wasn't necessary to make the bread more palpable, starvation convinced us that it was."

Parens said one day, his mother told him to escape and leave her behind. He planned to leave on Labor Day. His mother correctly guessed there would be fewer guards on patrol during the holiday.

"I don't remember our goodbyes," he said. "I probably couldn't bear it, rejecting its imprinting in my memory."

Parens said he made his way to the perimeter of the camp and pretended he was gathering pieces of wood to make a fire. When he saw no guard, he dropped to the ground and crawled through the thorny bushes that bordered the camp, using a potato sack to shield himself. Parens rushed across the final obstacle, a five-foot train embankment, and sprinted headlong into the surrounding vineyards.

He said he followed a highway to the nearest town and bought a train ticket using money his mother had given him.

Parens said a man noticed him on the train and said, "I know where you're coming from," The words sent him into a panic. To his relief, the man told him not to be frightened and asked him if he was hungry, Parens said.

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