Jeannine Burk [Annotator's Note: nee Jeannine Rafalowicz] was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1939. Her parents had two other children, both older than Burk. Her brother was 12 years senior to Burk while her sister was eight years older than her. Burk was the baby in the family. She has no recollection of the five of them as a family. The family must have been alright, but, at some point, there were rumors that Jews would be affected by future events. It was said that Jews would be rounded up and taken away. The rumors were unbelievable at first. When she was three, her father took her on a street car to another location that seemed a long way from her home. She was young and any small distance seemed long to her. Her father carried a small valise. He brought Burk to a woman's house and rang the doorbell. They entered the house and a short time later, her father left. Burk cannot remember what her feelings were when he departed. The woman took her inside and tried to make her feel at home. Burk missed her family and could not feel at home. She lived there for two years. She could not play outside because the neighbors knew the woman harboring her did not have a small girl. Burk had no toys. The woman never mistreated her. The hardest part was that Burk never felt love from her. That affected Burk. She felt she was not good enough to be with her parents. It devastated her. Burk was allowed to play in the backyard occasionally. She made up games using old newspapers. She cut them up and made handbags from them using glue her surrogate parent provided for her. One day, Burk was asked by the woman to hide in the outhouse, a small building with a toilet which had a chain to pull. The woman did not reveal the reason for the request. The Nazis were parading down the street. All the neighbors were told to open their doors and observe the parade. That was the reason. Burk watched the parade through the openings in the wooden walls. She knew the men were bad. She had that feeling. While she was on the floor crouching to see what was going on, she heard the sound of a small kitten. She opened the door slightly and grabbed the kitty. She held the kitten tight so she could be comforted. There was no one there to tell Burk that things were going to be alright. The kitty was her comfort. [Annotator's Note: Burk relives this memory with obvious emotion.] She lived that existence for two years until the Allied forces liberated Belgium in 1944. Belgium was designated as neutral before the war, but Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] could care less. He did whatever he wanted and took over Belgium.

Jeannine Burk experienced the forced separation of her family. Prior to the Nazis arriving to take her father away, her brother was hidden in a Christian home for boys similar to the YMCA. Her sister was at home with a disease called osteomyelitis. She had a bone infection on her hip. She wore a large cast. She was restricted to bed and had a blanket over her. It was raised into a hump to prevent contact between her and the cloth. Early in the morning, the Gestapo came and woke the neighbors next door. A small brick wall attached all the houses on the street. The intruders broke into Burk's home and took her father away in a truck. Prior to leaving, the Gestapo agent held a gun to Burk's mother and told her to go. Her mother said she could not leave her bedridden daughter. When they pulled the cover back from the girl, they could see she was in a cast. The Nazis told Burk's mother that they would return for her later in the day. By a miracle, a Catholic hospital called and sent an ambulance for Burk's sister. She was taken to the hospital and placed in an isolation ward. That saved her because the Nazis never inspected the isolation ward for fear of contagion. Otherwise, they took whatever they needed from other locations in the hospital. Burk's sister remained there for quite awhile. Burk feels that her father had information from the underground about what was pending so he took action to protect his family. That was how Burk was placed with a woman before these events [Annotator's Note: her father brought the youngest child to a nearby Christian woman for safekeeping]. The woman may have been paid. She was likely found through the underground. Burk's mother did not appear as the typical Nazi stereotypical view of a Jew. She was blond with fair skin and passed as a Christian. She went to work in a nursing home for older people. That nurse's assistant job saved her life. Jews were hated then and they still are in Belgium. The Brown Shirts were the snitchers for the Gestapo. Her mother went to visit Burk at the woman's house and took her to see her sister in the hospital. She could not enter the hospital because Burk was so young. Consequently, her mother lifted her daughter up to the window to see her sister. Burk was returned to the woman's house afterward. It left the young girl with a feeling of not being good enough for her mother to take with her.

Jeannine Burk was liberated in 1944. Her mother retrieved her and brought her home. [Annotator's Note: Burk, a Jewish youth, had been hidden by a Christian neighbor in Brussels during the German occupation.] When her mother went for Burk's sister in the hospital, she found that she had to be taught to walk again. Her legs were deformed by her extended stay in the hospital bed. [Annotator's Note: Burk's sister had osteomyelitis. When the Gestapo rounded up Jews, including her family, a Catholic hospital placed the young Jewish girl in the isolation ward which the Germans never inspected for fear of contagion.] The three were thrilled to be back together. Her older brother came home on his own. He talked little of his experiences but revealed that he was a courier. The family did not question him any further. Burk attended her first day of school when she was five years old. One of the first things that happened was a young boy called her a "dirty Jew." She has a difficult time rationalizing where that came from. Her family returned to their prior home. They were very poor. There was no heat in the winter except from coal. The kitchen was in the basement. The coal was delivered next to it. Upstairs was her parents' bedroom and a small room in the back. Burk slept with her mother. Her sister slept in the other room. When her brother returned, they found that he had changed. He was a Seventh Day Adventist. That was probably the result of him living with a Christian family. He played the violin. Friday night was the time for the weekly bath. There was no bathroom. There was an outhouse in the back. The family had a big basin for bathing. Burk's mother would heat the water and pour it in the basin for the two girls to bathe. After putting on her nightclothes following the bath, Burk would snuggle up in a big comforter on the bed and listen to her brother play "Ave Maria" on his violin. She thinks of him each time she hears the song. [Annotator's Note: Burk is emotional during the recollection.] That was also when her mother gave her a piece of candy after the regular dose of cod liver oil. Burk received the treat because she always made such a stink about taking the dose. When she was ten years old, Burk lost her mother to cancer. By the time it was found it was too late. That was despite repeated procedural attempts to control the cancer. She was in an oxygen tent while she was dying. Her mother told her youngest daughter to be a good girl for her sister, Augusta. Her brother was already married and expecting his second child. Burk was brought to her brother's home that evening. The next morning she was told by her brother and sister that her mother had died and gone to heaven. [Annotator's Note: Burk is noticeably shaken by the remembrance.] Her sister was 18 and Burk was ten years of age. They were to make their way together from that point. Burk attended synagogue for the first time after her mother passed away. Her sister stopped attending school. Burk began attending Yiddish school. She learned to read and write the language. The director of the school approached Burk's sister and told her that the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, ILGWU, was having a 50th year celebration for their members. The union was seeking young Holocaust survivors to address the gathering. They were looking for children who had been either orphaned or semi-orphaned to talk to the members. The ILGWU had made contributions to help young survivors in Europe. Two children from France and two from Italy had been selected. The child previously selected from Belgium had decided not to participate. Augusta was asked if Burk would be allowed to go in that place. There was a previous attempt to place her sister in an orphanage, but Augusta succeeded in preventing that. She did agree to allow her sister to take the voyage to America.

Jeannine Burk's mother died in February [Annotator's Note: 1950] and the trip to New York was in May. The purpose of the trip was to thank the union members for their help. [Annotator's Note: The International Ladies Garment Workers Union, or ILGWU, had contributed to orphaned or semi-orphaned Holocaust survivors following the war. The 50th anniversary celebration of the union was to have young survivors speak to the gathering.] The young travelers were on a magnificent ship, the Ilse de France, which was a luxury passenger ship. They were allowed to eat and drink anything they desired. That was unheard of. Burk was given a gift of a watch. She was flabbergasted. She loved the seven or eight day trip and roamed the ship. Burk loved the ice cream and fruit. She did not have to wait until the family had enough money to buy a piece of fruit. One Italian boy loved the wine and stayed drunk all the time. When the others wanted to find him, they merely searched where wine was served. [Annotator's Note: Burk laughs.] The union upper echelon met them in New York. David Dubinsky was the President of the union. His son-in-law did most of the greetings. They youngsters were brought to a hotel. Photographers and reporters, especially from the "Forward" [Annotator's Note: a Jewish newspaper], helped greet them and treat them as celebrities. A reporter and his wife gave special attention to Burk. They took her to a store near the hotel to buy her anything she wanted. She selected a baby doll with a blanket. She desired nothing else. The couple was wonderful to her. Next, the group went to Atlantic City. That was the location of the celebration for the 50th anniversary of the ILGWU. The children were slated to address the members. Burk knew no English. She spoke Yiddish and French. Her address to the gathering was a combination of multiple languages. She was not used to speaking to large groups, but they applauded her and were great. The group stayed in the United States for six weeks. They were taken to an ILGWU facility with cabins in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. She spent time with Mr. Dubinsky's son-in-law and his wife and enjoyed the experience. When the group returned to the hotel in New York, people would come up to them and inquire as to whether they were related because they shared the same last name [Annotator's Note: Burk's maiden name was Rafalowicz]. They were recognized since their photographs had been in the "Forward." The chaperone would invariably tell the inquirer that Burk did not know the answer since she was so young. After six weeks in the United States, the group returned to Europe.

About three months after returning, Jeannine Burk's sister received a letter from a family named Mike and Frieda Savage. [Annotator's Note: Burk had returned to Brussels, Belgium after a trip to the United States to meet with members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, ILGWU, as a representative young Holocaust survivor.] The Savages lived in the Bronx. It was brought to their attention that the "Forward" magazine carried a photograph of a young girl named Jeannine Rafalowicz, which was Burk's maiden name. The Savages thought there might be a relationship between them and the young survivor. The letter to Burk's sister had to be translated for the girls. The girls discovered that the Savages requested a photograph of their paternal grandparents. They agreed to send one but requested its return because they had no other copy. In a return letter, the girls received the photograph with a response that the Savages had the same photograph. Burk's father apparently had three sisters in America. They had immigrated long before the war. Following the war, Burk's mother had made unsuccessful inquiries searching for any surviving family members. It was a surprise to find family in the United States. After a lengthy correspondence over many months, the Savages proposed to sponsor the Burk sisters. Burk's older sister was not interested for herself because she had gotten engaged. Her sister and her fiancé discussed the options and felt that Burk would have a better chance of a good life if she went to the United States. That was the second time that Burk felt rejected. [Annotator's Note: Burk felt rejected by her parents during the Holocaust because as a young child, she had been sent to live with a Christian woman for safe keeping.] On her 12th birthday, she boarded an airplane all alone. She spoke no English and did not know the people she was going to meet. [Annotator's Note: The recounting of her journey is very emotional for Burk.] All she could think of was to re-board the plane after it landed so that she could go back to Belgium. That was not to be the case. After landing, the stewardess brought Burk over to the Savage family. There was Mike, Frieda and their daughter Cynthia. They could not communicate with each other. There was an aunt who lived in Boston who had come in and there was a birthday cake for Burk. All the young girl could think of was returning to her home in Belgium. While Burk was taking a bath that night, Mike Savage commented on her legs being concave. Burk only weighed 62 pounds at the time. There had not been much to eat in Belgium so she was very skinny. Cynthia was a real JAP [Annotator's Note: Jewish American Princess] and Burk became Cinderella. Preference was always given to Cynthia and Burk would be given the chores previously allotted to the Savage's daughter. Additionally, Mr. Savage enjoyed touching Burk. The little 12 year old thought that his actions must be a way to show love. He never did anything more than touch. [Annotator's Note: Burk was removed from her father when she was only five years old. She suffered from feeling unloved during the war years.] When Burk turned 17, she eloped and went from one lousy place to a new one. She had to get out of the Savages' house. Burk entered school only one week after her arrival in the United States. Her only means of communicating was through one Jewish teacher who knew a little Yiddish. Burk was positioned in the first seat of the first row in each of her classes. The teachers would raise their voices when they spoke English to her. She wanted to tell them that she was not deaf. She simply could not speak their language. Speaking loudly did not help in the understanding. When Burk speaks to students, she tells this story and reminds the students not to speak loudly in a similar situation. Burk became an anomaly in her classes. She was the recent immigrant who spoke only French. All her classmates wanted to see her. They must not have previously seen anyone from Europe. She became the center of attention. After three months, Burk learned to make herself be understood. She had no choice. Cultural changes surprised Burk. Schools were coeducational. She had never attended school with boys. The way of dress and games that were played were all different. Most of her classmates were very nice. They were just curious. Mrs. Savage, the bitch [Annotator's Note: Burk's terminology], spoke a little Yiddish, but Burk had to learn to communicate largely on her own. No one spoke French. The Savages bought Burk a pair of roller skates which she enjoyed. While skating one day, a siren sounded. Burk panicked and ran inside. No one understood until she told them that sirens meant that the bombs were coming. The young girl had to be calmed down because she was frantic. It was about noon time so she went back to skating. She skated well but fell and sprained her ankle badly. She was thrilled that she could roller skate. She had good times with her friends who lived near her in the Bronx. They collected their change and bought cigarettes. They hid them until they could share one cigarette among the many of them. There were games they would play. Cynthia was always held above her. [Annotator's Note: Burk gestures to indicate this.] While attending high school, Burk met a guy named Jess. He was infatuated with her. He did not like other guys looking at her while she danced in her leotards. Burk should have known he would be a problem. They did attend dances together. When Burk turned 15, the Savages wanted to adopt her. Looking back, she realizes that was a very bad mistake. She became their adopted daughter and still was not treated equally with Cynthia. If she had remained their niece, their treatment might have been more understandable. It was not a good thing.

Jeannine Burk became an American citizen. The club [Annotator's Note: Holocaust survivors club in New Orleans, Louisiana] had a party for her. She was delighted to become a citizen of the greatest country in the world. No matter what goes on in this country, Burk would not live anywhere else. She never rejects an opportunity to speak to students when she is invited. She reminds them that when she is gone, there will be no one else to speak to them of the events she experienced. Burk is one of the young ones [Annotator's Note: of the Holocaust survivors]. There are only three left in the club. The rest are all gone. The remaining members have to keep going on. There are people running for office who completely deny the Holocaust. One individual running for office clearly hated the Jews and blamed them for everything. That was just what Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] did. That frightens Burk because it is in America. Burk feels the most important thing she has to do is fight the denial. As she grew up in the Bronx, she never talked about the Holocaust. No one ever asked about it. She did not even know if they knew where Belgium was. Her best friend could not put things in perspective as to why she spoke French when she came from Belgium. Burk said that was the language of the country. They may or may not have shown an interest in her past. Burk may have stimulated her friends' interest in looking into the events.

After the war, Jeannine Burk continued to search for her father with her mother. People would gradually return from the camps and Burk would search for him among the returnees. She does not remember how long it was before her mother determined that Burk's father had been exterminated in Auschwitz. Somehow that information was obtained. That was when Burk took up the search for her father. She did not know what she was doing. She only realized that there was no guarantee that he was not somewhere. When she reached the United States, she persisted in her inquiries. She stopped only as a result of that fateful day in Philadelphia. [Annotator's Note: A gathering of Holocaust survivors occurred there in 1985 and Nazi records were available to the attendees.] The idea of the trip came up in her club in New Orleans. The club was a wonderful group of survivors. One survivor, Yudal Curtz [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling], brought his son because his wife, also a survivor, did not want to go with the group. Burk hit it off with him and they had a great time. When she first saw the books, she was impressed with the meticulous records kept by the Nazis. When she saw her father's name with no date of return, it was so incredibly final for her. She saw no sense in looking any further for him. He died in the camp. It was very tough for her to accept. She had to stop looking for him at that point. Her father was not anywhere such that he could return. After dinner, she listened to Elie Wiesel who was the guest speaker. [Annotator's Note: Elie Wiesel was a noted Auschwitz survivor who spoke and wrote graphically of his experiences in the death camp and his survival.] It was a phenomenal experience. When the weekend ended, all the attendees returned to their homes.

Jeannine Burk always felt part of a group of people who had experienced much worse than she. They were all the new Americans. They bonded as a family because most of them had lost all the members of their families in the Holocaust. Those survivors who had reached New Orleans linked together and supported each other. Burk came late in the history of the club. She came in 1971 and married Maurice. Shortly afterward, a member of the synagogue, who was a survivor, found out Burk was a survivor. He invited her to meet the other survivors who gathered together as a club. Burk's husband Maurice was always welcomed with open arms into the gathering. Burk misses that man so much. He was God's gift to her. When she first met her future husband and when they were married, it was as if God said to her that it was her turn to be happy. They had 42 years together. They met in Atlantic City. They were introduced by Kathleen "Jinx" and Sol Labo [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling]. The couple was the aunt and uncle of her former husband. Burk always favored her in-laws despite the bad marriage. They were like her parents after her experience with the Savages. [Annotator's Note: Burk had experienced harsh treatment by her adopted parents, Mike and Frieda Savage. She eagerly left that tough environment to marry her first husband.] She did not think of the Savages as her parents. They did not provide well for Burk and she resented their treatment. Conversely, her former in-laws from her first marriage were concerned with Burk and her financial security. They behaved like parents. They did not provide her with things she did not need like the Savages did. The latter did not even come back from Florida for the bris [Annotator's Note: the important Jewish traditional ceremony related to a newborn male's circumcision] of Burk's second son. [Annotator's Note: Burk is clearly hurt in remembering the slight by the Savages.] Even after the divorce, Burk kept in touch with her ex-husband's parents and family. Burk was invited to join Sol and Jinx in Atlantic City for a convention where Sol's cousin, Maurice, was going to be singing in a barbershop quartet. Maurice had just lost his wife. Burk's ex-in-laws watched her boys while she took a bus to Atlantic City. She met Jinx and Sol and shared their room. They introduced her to her future husband. The couple spent a lot of time together. After the convention, Maurice had to go to New York on business. Afterward, he asked Burk to have dinner with him occasionally. Soon, he had a proposition for her. He would provide her with a ticket to come down to New Orleans and stay with Jinx and Sol. They would see a lot of each other and see where that would go. He already knew he liked his future wife. He proclaimed that if it worked out that would be great. If not, Burk could always owe him for the ticket. [Annotator's Note: She laughs.] She went to New Orleans for two weeks. They saw each other almost every day. She went back to her home. He would continue to call. He told her that he would be coming in for her birthday in September. He proposed marriage to her on that visit. Burk commenced preparing lists of the pros and the cons. He had four children and she had two. Having children and dating was difficult. She could not be rejected by him because of her children because he had his own. Jinx and Sol said the marriage was a great idea. Burk agreed to the union. That was at the end of September. She traveled to New Orleans in January. Maurice wrote a letter to Burk's boys and asked them if it would be acceptable to them. Burk's ex-husband could have cared less if his former family moved south. Arriving in early January, she was married before the end of the month. That was the best thing. It was tough with the children. They worked it through and lasted 42 years. She told her future husband about her wartime experiences at the beginning of their relationship. She wanted him to know. All her children were told about it, too. The Steven Spielberg Foundation interviewed her also. There are no stepchildren in her family. They are all her children. Her oldest daughter knows more about what happened. The children do not attend the Holocaust programs. They are grown and make those decisions. Nevertheless, they all know of her story as a child survivor. When she attended the Holocaust survivors' convention [Annotator's Note: in Philadelphia in 1985], there was the stage where there was to be a big draw with the speech. [Annotator's Note: Elie Wiesel was the guest speaker. He was a noted Auschwitz survivor who spoke and wrote graphically of his circumstances in the death camp and his survival.] Everyone did what they wanted to do otherwise. It was a large empty auditorium. Authors were selling their books. The Nazi books [Annotator's Note: the death camp records] were available to inspect. People would go before the gathering and announce their name and the camp, such as Auschwitz, where they were imprisoned. They would seek other inmates from the same camp or villagers from their European hometown. It was heart-wrenching. They did manage to have a good time while they attended the convention. She explored the railcar route with David [Annotator's Note: no surname provided.]. She was glad she had a good time because of the pain of realizing that she would never see her father again. [Annotator's Note: At the meeting, Burk found her father's name in a record book from Auschwitz. It showed him arriving but not departing which represented the finalization of her search for her father.]

Jeannine Burk and Maurice [Annotator's Note: her husband] went to Belgium before he passed and visited her brother. After a ten day stay there, the group went to Auschwitz. A guide accompanied them. They took a flight to Poland where they stayed for one night. Burk did not like being there. The next morning the guide took them to the camp in a special car. She was struck not only by the beautiful farms on each side of the road but by the assertion by the wartime inhabitants that they did not know what was going on in Auschwitz. They had to have smelled what was happening. They must have smelled bones and flesh burning. [Annotator's Note: The crematoria destroyed the remains of Auschwitz captives after they were gassed.] It made Burk angry to think of the inhabitants' disclaimer. They arrived at Auschwitz and saw displays of human hair and the products made from them. They observed all sizes of shoes of those who arrived there. Burk wanted to say a prayer for her father because it had not been done there before. It started to rain. The visitors were hastened to leave. The guide took them to where Maurice could say a prayer. She then took them to a display explaining the sequence of extermination at Auschwitz. Children were exterminated right away. Women were killed within a day or two. When men were exterminated, it was within three days. Burk conjectures that her father was first taken to a camp called Mechelen prior to Auschwitz. Mechelen was either in Belgium or France. Burk thinks it was in the former [Annotator's Note: Mechelen, located in Belgium, was a transit camp run by the SS for transport of Jews and Roma from Belgium to labor and death camps, primarily Auschwitz-Birkenau.]. From there, transit was to Auschwitz. It helped Burk to hold on to the idea that her father did not suffer more than three days while in Auschwitz. It was better than thinking that he had held on there for months and months. She was glad to find that out. As they were forced to exit that camp, once again, Burk rhetorically asked her husband how could the local citizens claim they did not know what was happening there. The farms and homes were nearby. They existed at the time of the executions. [Annotator's Note: Burk becomes agitated again with the local population's denial of knowledge of the Auschwitz atrocities.] The guide said that the population adhered to their claim of ignorance. The population would get their retribution when the Allies made them go to the camps and bury the dead. Burk assesses the sympathy of the Polish and people of Belgium for Jews to be no better today than it was back then. They cannot leave the Jews alone because they view them responsible for all faults of the world.

Jeannine Burk is very proud of being a Jew and always will be. She has never denied her heritage. There have been big steps forward in teaching the Holocaust academically. She sees progress in the schools that invite her and Ann. [Annotator's Note: Ann Levy, another Holocaust survivor. Levy, like Burk, volunteers at The National WWII Museum and visit schools to tell their stories first-hand. Levy's interview is also published on The Digital Collections of The National WWII Museum website]. The teachers want to teach more than just about the diary of Anne Frank. It is encouraging and important for young people to know about what happened back then. They have the job of carrying on not only the story but to prevent another similar future occurrence. Burk feels after she has passed on, all the other survivors will have predeceased her. The next generation must carry on the history that she has given to them. They must be able to refute the Holocaust deniers. When the state of Israel was formed, Burk felt it was a long time coming. [Annotator's Note: Burk is noticeably elated.] Jews finally had a place to claim as their own. No Jews would be turned away from Israel. When Burk first arrived in Israel, she kissed the ground. It is unbelievable what the inhabitants have done with that country.