The overwhelming life of Diane, a young Jew exfiltrated in 1942 from the Agde camp hidden in a backpack

Diane Fenster and her daughter Hélène, last week in Izieu. Maison d'Izieu M.Bourgougnon – B.Berthelier

Diane, her daughter Hélène and Bruno Pallarès, with the Izieu house in the background.

Diane Popowski was a year and a half old when she was taken in by the "Dame d'Izieu", Sabine Zlatin, before being entrusted to the Pallarès family in Montpellier. She becomes their full-fledged child, before her father, four years after returning from the hell of the concentration camps, comes to collect her. A tragedy for her.

Diane, two years old, dressed in the scout clothes of her brother Guy, 14 years old, in Izieu. Coll S. Zlatin

Diane Fenster, née Popowski, will be 84 years old in a few days. She was present in Izieu for the 80th anniversary of the roundup, last week, in the presence of the President of the Republic and the prefect of Hérault.
Diane grew up in Montpellier with the Pallarès family, who welcomed her. Who saved her. In 1942, two teenage girls, Renée and Paulette, were part of the Scouts and brought supply packages to the Agde camp. Their mother, Marie-Antoinette, took into her home little Diane, one and a half years old, whom Sabine Zlatin, a Red Cross nurse who would become the "Dame d'Izieu", & nbsp;just left the camp, hidden in a backpack. Paulette went to pick up little Diane in Lamalou-les-Bains, where she had been placed.

'The Germans were going to kill everyone"

"My mom begged her to take me, because the Germans were going to kill everyone", Diane Fenster testifies today. His parents, both Jewish, came from Luxembourg. He was Polish and she was Belgian. They had found refuge in Prades-le-Lez. But denounced, they were taken prisoner in Agde.
Little Diane, as beautiful as a heart, is joyfully adopted by the whole family. "It was love at first sight", Renée would later recount.

Marie-Antoinette Pallarès : "Une sœur inattendue" via @franceculture https://t.co/yXAfHsiDOL

— Arnaud Boucomont (@A_Boucomont) April 12, 2024

In the summer of 1943, Paulette was an instructor in Izieu. Despite the tension due to the war, the house lives on the joy of the children… And the loves of the moment: Dominique Vidaud evokes "a little flirtation between Paulette and Théo", one of the two oldest teenagers in the colony. These two, Théo Reis and Arnold Hirsch, are also in photo with Paulette. They were both sent with Miron Zlatin to Estonia less than a year later to be shot.

Paulette Pallarès with Théo Reis and Arnold Hirsch. Coll Philippe Dehan

Renée Pallarès joins her sister Paulette in the summer of 43. Just like their brother Guy, 14, who comes with little Diane, two, to spend the month of August there. The Pallarès leave the colony at the end of summer. Diane lived in Montpellier until she was eight years old. His mother did not survive. Her father found her in 1949 and wanted to take her.

Marie-Antoinette Pallarès welcomed young Diane into her home from 1942 to 1949.

"It hurt me a lot because I didn’t understand anything, says Diane 75 years later. I had a brother, two sisters, a mother." She follows her father to Paris, meets her stepmother. "She’was a witch. I received a letter from the Pallarès. She gave me a big slap and forbade me to answer them. My father put me in a Jewish boarding school."

Righteous Among the Nations

And then we left for Canada in 1951. "My father wanted to get rid of me and make a life for himself. He pushed me to marry young." Her husband Saul owned a leather goods store and then a ski resort. They had four children. Saul recently passed away.

At 18, Diane had reconnected with her family in Montpellier. "They are truly in my heart. They were amazing." She is crying.

Diane Fenster, in the same place as 81 years earlier, in front of the colony house. M.Bourgougnon – B.Berthelier

Diane Fenster with the photo of her at the same location in 1943. BRUNO PALLARES

Her adoptive mother received the title of Righteous Among the Nations, like her two daughters Renée and Paulette, in 1996. All three are dead today. Their descendants did not cut the thread. "She's our Canadian aunt, insists Bruno, 69 years old, one of Guy's sons. Everyone always considered her a sister of Guy, Renée and Paulette."

Diane and her brother Guy at the end of the 80s. PALLARES COLLECTION

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