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Holocaust survivor Ilse Loeb spoke about her life as a hidden child in Holland March 29 at The Jewish Center in Princeton.

Ilse Loeb was born Ilse Morgenstern on June 17, 1925, in Vienna, Austria. She left Vienna in November of 1938 for Amsterdam, where she found refuge with a Jewish foster family until June 1942, after which time she went into hiding with gentile families until 1945.

Loeb began by asking the audience if they could imagine being 13 years old and having to leave their family to go to another country alone with $6 in their pocket. Loeb was a mere child at that time and talked about her happy childhood until she was forced to leave Austria. Suddenly, she was at the train station saying goodbye, and it was the last time she saw her mother and father. Her brother also had to stay behind. The only reason she was leaving, she said, is "because I was Jewish." Her parents knew that the only way Loeb could be saved was to leave Vienna, and Austrian law allowed only children less than 16 years of age to leave the country.

She became a "hidden child" of the Holocaust by being given a false identity by the Dutch underground movement, an organization comprised of courageous individuals who risked their own lives and their families' lives by helping Jews escape certain death. Loeb emphasized that hidden children were usually alone without family and hid everywhere possible to escape being caught by the Nazis -- in churches, orphanages, and even in sewers. Loeb commented that "the hidden children felt lost forever."

Hidden children survived, she said, because of the courage of Christians. Loeb commented that the Christian rescuers shared compassion and sympathy for all the Jewish hidden children. "They identified with the injustice and intolerance," and they took action while millions of others in occupied Europe did nothing.

When Hitler invaded Austria in 1938, Loeb's father told her that "bad times are in store for the Jews." During that summer, the Nazis went into her father's print shop and asked him if he was a Jew. When he nodded, they told him to "get out -- this is no longer your store." A swastika was placed on the front of the store and Loeb recalls her father standing for hours in front of his shop where he had worked so very hard.

The Nazis also came to her family's apartment and told them they had 10 minutes to leave for relocation to another apartment with other Jews. After the 10 minutes elapsed, her father asked the Nazis for permission to go back into the apartment to get some more things. They agreed, and watched his every move to ensure he would not take anything valuable. Loeb was able to retrieve only a gold watch belonging to her father, which she cherishes to this day. The Nazis were rounding up young men for slave labor and her brother left that very night. Miraculously, he evaded capture.

In Amsterdam, Loeb first stayed with foster parents pre-arranged by the Dutch underground. Since this foster family thought they were getting a much younger child, they didn't want her and she was forced to find other living arrangements. Loeb then lived with her Aryan-looking cousin Adie and his non-Jewish fiancée, Nicky. While there, she received a letter from the Nazis in 1942 to present herself at the Amsterdam train station that night when she would be among many children relocating to a labor camp. She needed desperately to disappear.

Adie met Loeb at the station that night and gave her new papers from the Dutch underground plus a new coat -- minus the yellow star. She was suddenly a new person with the identity of Yopie Lok, a non-Jewish girl born in Holland. By this time, letters from her parents had ceased to arrive, and she feared the worst had occurred. Loeb brainwashed herself into being Yopie Lok and blocked out as much as she could from her past life. It took her several years after the war ended to remember many things from her past. Nicky knew it wasn't safe for Loeb to stay with them any longer and she then went to live with a couple who opened their home to hidden children and ended up saving 36 Jewish lives. Loeb stayed with them for about 10 months and, after the war, remained in touch with this courageous couple, who eventually resided in Woodstock, N.Y., and have since died. Loeb attended their funerals.

There were a lot of Dutch Nazis, Loeb told the audience, and they were determined to find all the hidden Jews in Holland. Loeb returned to Nicky and Adie's home and at the time, the Nazis were encountering problems on the Russian front. The Allies arrived in Holland and liberated South Holland, but not where Loeb was living. September 1944 through May 1945 was a terrible time since they were still under Nazi occupation. There was very little food, no electricity, and no gas. Sixteen thousand people died of hunger or froze to death during this period.

Eventually all of Holland was liberated and the war was over, but happiness did not come to Loeb. She was desperate to learn the fate of her family and, after writing to the Austrian authorities, learned that her dear mother and father were taken to Poland to a holding camp called Belzek. This camp had only been in use for 10 months and managed to eliminate 600,000 lives during that time. Loeb further learned through a professor who wrote a book about personally being in Belzek that her parents were seen there and had indeed been killed there.

Even after all the speeches Loeb has given, she was still visibly upset when certain memories were brought to the surface. Yet, when asked if she thinks there is good in all people considering what she and so many others dealt with, she simply responded, "Yes, absolutely, there is good in all people. I don't hold everyone responsible for what happened."

Loeb's brother survived the war and eventually immigrated to the U.S., and she located him with the assistance of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. He first lived in California and then moved to Chicago, the city where Loeb met her beloved husband of 60 years. Together they have four children and seven grandchildren.

Loeb recited a very touching poem written by a blind, non-Jewish female who heard about Loeb. The final request from Loeb to the many children in the audience was to speak up in the future, when she and all the survivors are long gone, to the Holocaust deniers. Loeb told the children that "[you] students are now witnesses" by seeing her there in person and "[you] have the responsibility to speak for the victims when people say the Holocaust never happened."