Esther Bergman (née Stern) was born in Antwerp on 21 March 1935. After the German occupation of Belgium in 1940, her family fled to southern France, living in a village there until 1942. When the German occupation of Vichy France was imminent, her parents sent her to live with the Huguenot family of Odette Hofbauer, on a farm in St. Jean du Gard. Following the liberation of France in 1944, she and her brother, who was hidden on a different farm, were brought to a children’s home in Aix-les-Bains, where they stayed for about one year, until they were reunited with their parents in Antwerp in 1945. The Stern family immigrated to the United States in November 1947. She subsequently married Saul Bergman, also a native of Antwerp, who had fled his homeland after the German invasion, was captured in France, and survived several internment camps there before escaping to Switzerland and immigrating to the United States. The Bergmans live in Potomac, Maryland.
Consists of a memoir written by Esther Bergman to pay homage to Madame Odette Hofbauer, a French Huguenot responsible for hiding Bergman for nearly two years during the Holocaust. The memoir describes Bergman's flight to the south of France with her family, her separation from her family while in a transit camp, her time in hiding on a farm belonging to the family of Odette Hofbauer, and her reunion with Hofbauer in 1987 after a 43-year separation.
Esther Bergman memoir
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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