Regine's Story and Full Video Testimony
Born in Paris in 1934 to Polish Jewish parents from Radom, Régine Grossman grew up in the modest but warm neighborhood of Buttes-Chaumont. Her parents, Shlomo and Genia Nowopolski, had immigrated to France before the war and, fearing the growing antisemitism around them, changed their family name to Novault because “Nowopolski sounded too Jewish.”
Her father worked in the leather garment trade, and despite humble beginnings, Régine remembers a happy childhood before the war shattered everything.
As anti-Jewish laws spread across France, Régine was forced to wear the yellow star sewn onto her clothes by her mother — a badge she remembered experiencing as both a humiliation and a punishment. The family was subjected to constant discrimination: Jews were forced into separate sections of public transportation, excluded from daily life, and eventually ordered to register as Jews with the authorities. Soon after, her father was sent to the internment camp of Pithiviers internment camp.
At Pithiviers, her father was assigned forced labor in the fields while her mother worked in the camp kitchens. Régine, still only a child, slept on straw in a stable. Sensing the danger as deportations to Auschwitz concentration camp intensified, her father eventually escaped to southern France.
On the morning of July 16, 1942, during the infamous Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup, Régine awoke at dawn to screams echoing through Paris as French police buses arrived to arrest Jewish families. By sheer luck, the building’s caretaker hid Régine, her mother, and her little brother inside a small storage closet before the Gestapo searched the building. They were never found.
After fleeing Paris, the family was hidden for several weeks by a Christian friend of her father. Fearing for his own life, he later helped them escape to the free zone in the Cher region of France, where Régine’s aunt was also in hiding. To survive, Régine was baptized and attended Catholic school, learning catechism alongside the other children. By the end of the war, she had even prepared for her First Communion. The local priest knew she was Jewish, but played his role in order to protect her life.
Looking back, Régine remembers growing up with the constant fear of being arrested, deported, or murdered like so many other Jewish families around her. After the liberation, her father found the family again and worked as a lumberjack to rebuild their lives. When they returned to Paris, they discovered their apartment had been occupied, and the new tenants refused to leave. For nearly two years, the family of four lived crammed into a tiny maid’s room, sleeping head-to-toe in the same bed while fighting to reclaim their home.
There was no time for Régine to pursue studies after the war. She immediately went to work in the garment industry. Not long afterward, she met Maurice, another survivor and “miraculé” of the war. Together they rebuilt what the Holocaust had tried to destroy. They raised two sons, Marc and Laurent, and transformed the family business into a successful fashion empire — a remarkable legacy born from survival, resilience, and the determination to live.
