Guitel's Story and Full Video Testimony
Born in Paris in 1932, Guitel grew up in a deeply religious Jewish family in the Marais district of Paris. The second youngest of eight children, she remembers a warm and loving childhood surrounded by her brothers and sisters before the war turned her world upside down.
In July 1942, during the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup, Guitel was at home with her parents when French police arrested thousands of Jewish families. Over 13,000 Jews, including more than 4,000 children, were taken to the Vélodrome d’Hiver before being deported to camps in France in overcrowded cattle cars.
At first, families remained together, but soon the adults were separated from their children as deportations to Auschwitz concentration camp began. Guitel and the other children suddenly found themselves alone in the camp after being brutally torn away from their parents.
In an extraordinary act of courage, Guitel’s uncle managed to rescue her and her sister from the camp. The two girls were hidden separately with families in the French countryside, where they survived the war in hiding.
After the liberation, Guitel learned that her parents, her sister Pauline, and her brother Isaac had all been murdered in Auschwitz. One of her older brothers eventually came to find the two young girls, and together they returned to Paris, only to discover that their family apartment had been occupied.
Despite the immense loss and trauma she endured as a child, Guitel rebuilt her life with remarkable strength. She eventually settled in Israel, where she has lived for decades, carrying with her the memory of the family she lost and the responsibility of bearing witness for the children who never returned.
