We Survived . . . At Last I Speak

This is Leon Malmed's true story of his and his sister Rachel's escape from the Holocaust in Occupied France. When their father and mother were arrested in 1942, their French neighbors agreed to watch their children until they returned. Leon's parents were taken first to Drancy, then to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and they never returned. Meanwhile their downstairs neighbors, Henri and Suzanne Ribouleau, gave the children a home and family and sheltered them through subsequent roundups, threats, air raids, and the war's privations. The courage, sympathy, and dedication of the Ribouleaus stand in strong contrast to the collaborations and moral weakness of many of the French authorities. "Papa Henri and Maman Suzanne" were honored as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem in 1977. It is a narrative of love and courage, set against a backdrop of tragedy, fear, injustice, prejudice, and the greatest moral outrage of the modern era. It is a story of goodness triumphing once more over evil.