Michel Handler Identified
April 13, 2011
Michael Handler was born in Paris. Michael was an infant in April 1941 when his father was taken to the French detention camp Beaune-La-Rolande. Michael’s father was later deported to Auschwitz on June 28, 1942. Soon after, Michael’s mother went into hiding in Paris and arranged for him and his sister, Lucienne, to go into hiding in the French countryside.
Lucienne and Michael were forced to move from place to place to evade detection as Jewish children in hiding during the Nazi occupation. Michael remembers that this was a very difficult time for him and his sister. They were hidden in Château-Thierry from June to September 1942. They were then in hiding in Fère-en-Tardenois from September 1942 to January 1943, when they moved again to Le Mans. They stayed there until September 1944, when they were reunited with their mother.
After the war Michael attended school and lived in Paris and the French countryside with his mother and sister. In August 1953, after the death of their mother, Michael and Lucienne went to live with relatives in Venezuela. In April 1957 they were sponsored by an uncle to come to the United States. Michael graduated from high school in 1960 and attended technical school in Los Angeles, California. Michael was drafted by the U.S. Army in November 1963 and spent two years in France during the Vietnam War. He recounted that it felt good to return to France as an American. Michael married his wife, Alice, in 1976 and now resides in California.