We Survived ... At Last I Speak

We Survived ... At Last I SpeakThis is the true story of Leons and his sister Rachels escape from the Holocaust in Occupied France. In 1942 gendarmes arrested Leons parents as Jews, and two French neighbors generously offered to watch the children until they returned. Leons parents never returned, so their downstairs neighbors, Henri and Suzanne Ribouleau, gave Leon and Rachel a home and sheltered them through roundups, threats, air raids, and privations war. The courage, sympathy,

This is the true story of LeonÕs and his sister RachelÕs escape from the Holocaust in Occupied France. In 1942 gendarmes arrested LeonÕs parents as Jews, and two French neighbors generously offered to watch the children Òuntil they returned.Ó LeonÕs parents never returned, so their downstairs neighbors, Henri and Suzanne Ribouleau, gave Leon and Rachel a home and sheltered them through roundups, threats, air raids, and privations war. The courage, sympathy, and dedication of the Ribouleaus stood in strong contrast to the collaborations of the French authorities. Leon and Rachel each came to America after the war, but kept their strongest family ties to ÒPapa Henri and Maman Suzanne,Ó whom Yad Vashem honored in 1977 as ÒRighteous Among the NationsÓ. LeonÕs story speaks at last of the courage and love that sustained him, against a backdrop of tragedy, fear, prejudice, and the greatest moral outrage of the modern era. It is a story of goodness surviving evil again and again and again.