Star of David

During WWII, my mother, Rywa Green (nee Lewin) and her family were sheltered in a third floor attic of a building opposite Gestapo headquarters in Lille, France. As Jews, they were required to wear the yellow Star of David. However, they refused. The building was raided by the Gestapo and Jews living on the first two floors were taken to concentration camps. The Gestapo did not go to the third floor as they did not believe that any Jews lived there, as my mother’s family had not identified themselves as Jewish by wearing stars. My mother often said that not wearing the star saved her life and that of her family. On June 8th, 1946, she married my father, Ted, who was a British soldier in the allied forces, in Lille. Soon after they moved to Birmingham, where they lived. My father died in 1983 and my mother in 2007. It was only in the last year of her life that she showed my sister and myself the star, which she had kept.

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