Charles Rotmil’s Story

Days of Remembrance for victims of the Holocaust falls on April 8th this year. During its first commemoration in 1979, President Carter spoke these powerful words: “We must remember the terrible price paid for bigotry and hatred, and also the terrible price paid for indifference and for silence… We must recognize that when any fellow human being is stripped of humanity—when any person is turned into an object of repression; tortured or defiled or victimized by terrorism or prejudice or racism—then all human beings are victims, too.”

Both of my parents survived enslavement in Nazi concentration camps. All four of my grandparents, three of my aunts, one uncle, and dozens of cousins were murdered in Auschwitz. Their lives were stolen along with six million other European Jews of every age—a staggering number that equals more than the combined current populations of Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle.

As a second-generation survivor, I feel called to help convey what it was like to be the target of such a vast, gruesome, precisely choreographed genocide—when any effort to save innocent people was punishable by death—and also to explore what lessons for humanity can be gleaned from that horrific time. Today, in keeping with that obligation, I want to share the story of an old friend of my father’s —Charles Rotmil.

Charles, a professional photographer, was a member of the spiritual community my family was part of in the 1970s. We reconnected while I was writing Quest for Eternal Sunshine, and he generously shared his memories, as well as many priceless photographs that are now featured in the book and on the Quest website. During our many conversations, I learned that Charles and my father became close, in part, because they had the Holocaust in common—they were both survivors seeking ways to digest their history, face their pain, and find joy and purpose in their lives. Charles, who is 88 now, was only seven when the war began. He was one of the very small percentage of children who survived the war—one of the Hidden Children.

Born in 1932 in Strasbourg, France, right near the German border, Charles had two older siblings: Henrietta, born in 1922, and Bernard, born in 1926. As the baby, Charles was adored and fussed over by the entire family, except for his brother, who resented all the attention he received. He and his sister were exceptionally close.

Charles’ father, an art broker, moved the family to Vienna in 1937 because he thought it would be a good location for his business. But in March of 1938, Germany annexed Austria, incorporating it into the German Reich. “I was too young to understand exactly what was happening, but it seemed clear that everyone in Vienna seemed to be extremely happy, everyone except for my family. I saw Hitler in an open car during a parade and the crowds cheering him were enormous and jubilant. Soon after, we began to feel the impact of antisemitism. There were giant posters everywhere, depicting Jews in appalling ways.”

Charles (3 years-old) at far left, with his family circa 1929. Left to right: Charles’ sister, Henrietta; father, Adi; Mother, Dora; and brother, Bernard.

Then, in November of 1938, came the terrifying pogrom known as Kristallnacht—The Night of Broken Glass—when violent anti-Jewish rioters vandalized Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. Those terrible days marked the first time the Nazi regime incarcerated Jews on a massive scale solely because of their ethnicity. Thirty thousand men were arrested, including Charles’ father, Adi, who was violently beaten by two Nazi troopers in front of six-year-old Charles and his twelve-year-old brother, Bernard, before being taken away to a local jail.

When Charles’ father was released after a month of abuse and humiliation, the family relocated to a refugee center in Marneffe, Belgium—a peaceful community where they felt safe until Germany invaded in May 1940. Bringing only what they could carry on foot, Charles and his family fled with hundreds of other refugees, traveling on roads where German vehicles would periodically pass, shooting at people who didn’t quickly run and hide in ditches. “We didn’t know what was going on or where we were going,” Charles told me. “But we knew that there were huge executions taking place in forests where countless Jews were being shot and dumped into mass graves.”

After walking for many days, Charles’ father left the family by the side of the road to try to obtain a wheelbarrow. “But my father didn’t come back. We lost him and didn’t know what to do. Eventually we found a hay barn where we could sleep. Early the next morning, my sister, Henrietta, woke me up to tell me they’d heard there was a train organized by the Red Cross that was headed to Rouen. We needed to hurry up so we wouldn’t miss it.”

The train was teeming with people. That night, while almost everyone was asleep, seven-year-old Charles was restless, running up and down the hallways. “Suddenly, I was lifted off my feet, banged around the sides of the train, and knocked out. When I came to, I couldn’t find my family. The train was a total wreck. There were corpses, metal and glass everywhere. The train had crashed into a car that was sitting on the track. No one knew if it was an accident or sabotage."

Charles eventually found his mother on a stretcher with all her limbs in splints. “My brother was also on a stretcher. His legs had been dislocated from having people fall on him when he was thrown out of the train. My sister, who I adored, was so seriously wounded, I won’t describe how she looked. She died soon after I found her.”

The survivors were taken to a hospital in Rouen, Charles among them. “They put me in a children’s ward where all the beds were in a semicircle rather than in rows. I remember sneaking through the hospital to find my mother. I was determined to see her. I hid under a bed until the coast was clear. I crawled through a nurse’s legs. Finally, somewhere on the third floor, I found her lying propped up in a bed. She seemed coherent and I assumed she was healing. But her skin was dark and yellowish. I didn’t tell her about my sister or that I didn't know where my brother was. Then someone noticed me and made me go back downstairs. I never saw my mother again. Months later, I learned that she died in the hospital.”

Soon after, Germany started bombing the city. The patients and staff had to hide in basement during air raids, and that was where Charles was reunited with his brother, Bernard. The hospital was hit, so the Red Cross shipped the brothers, as well as some other boys, to a sanctuary on Île de Berder—a Celtic French island in Brittany. “We were put on an island that had a nunnery, and the nuns took care of us. I remember how humiliated I felt, because my brother and I had lice. The other boys teased us as the nuns shaved our heads and the teasing never stopped. One night on the beach, kids threw stones and pinecones at us. I have no idea why. And my brother just held me. That must have been the beginning of his realization that he would have to protect me now. There was no one else.”

After a few months in Brittany, it was discovered that Charles’ father had returned to Brussels after failing to locate his family. A Red Cross volunteer—Madame Gutt, whose husband was the finance minister of Belgium at the time—escorted Charles and Bernard back to Brussels. “Our father did not appear overjoyed to see us. I think we only added to his worries and burdens. Every day, he had to venture out to try and make enough money to bring home food for us, mostly beans.” One day, Charles’ father came home with the obligatory Jewish stars—yellow patches they were supposed to sew on all of their clothes. “He put them all in the ashtray and set them on fire. Not only were they humiliating, my father knew that they’d mark us as targets for arrest when the Nazis began rounding up Jews.”

The Rotmil trio moved frequently to evade the Gestapo. Charles, who had fair blonde hair and blue eyes, said, “I looked like a perfect little Nazi, part of the Aryan race, so no one really paid attention to me when I was walking on the streets. I learned to be very careful and not talk. I didn’t have friends. I talked to my father and brother in whispers.” But eventually, their luck ran out. In 1943, Charles’ father was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where Charles later learned he’d been gassed upon arrival.

Photo of Bernard and Charles taken by Father Bruno on the day the brothers arrived at his monastery, Le Mont Cesar, in June 1943

At ten and sixteen, Charles and Bernard were once again forced to fend for themselves. A trusted neighbor advised Bernard to go to a local church to seek help. The priest directed him to a Catholic monastery run by the Benedictine monk, Father Dom Bruno Reynders, who was part of the resistance and had set up a rescue effort for Jewish children. Bernard traveled to meet Father Bruno, who agreed to take the boys under his wing. “I waited on the stoop late into the afternoon for my brother to return, but instead, Pere Bruno appeared like an angel, wearing a robe and sandals. He’d come in person to pick me up. I didn’t know him, but I trusted him,” Charles recalled. “’You are little Charles? I am Father Bruno,’ he said. ‘Now take my hand. We’re going to walk to the train station. Don’t talk. No matter what, don’t say a thing.’ And in this way we walked hand-in-hand to the train station under the gaze of Gestapo agents. No one paid any attention to us. I was wearing my best Sunday suit, and I wasn’t allowed to bring any other possessions.”

Father Bruno created false papers for boys with the surname “Roumieux.” Deciding it would be safer to hide the brothers separately, Father Bruno found Bernard work on a farm and placed Charles with a local family. For everyone’s safety, Charles wasn’t allowed to know where Bernard was going. “Father Bruno came to me and said, ‘You do not have a brother now, not until after the war is over. Your name is not Rotmil. You are Charles Roumieux. Never tell anyone that you are Jewish.’ That was the beginning of needing to keep my identity hidden. When I went to the bathroom or took a shower, I had to hide my genitals so no one would see that I was circumcised.”

Charles was placed with a family under cover of being a distant relative whose parents had died. His first placement didn’t go well. “I began wetting my bed and having nightmares where my screams woke the family. Father Bruno had to find me a new home.” After a second failed attempt, Charles finally settled in successfully with the Luyckx family under a new surname, “Von Romsdonck.” To this day, Charles has nightmares about mixing up his identities, uncertain about who he’s supposed to be and who he cannot be.

“Andre Luyckx was a professor at the University of Louvain. He and his wife, Helene, took me in even though he had five children of his own and it was a huge risk, putting the entire family in danger of capture. They were the best family.”

Charles had to become an instant Catholic. “I didn’t know a thing about Catholicism, but I faked it. I attended a Catholic school where we prayed in every class. I liked it because I could pray for my family. Once, while sitting in the back of the classroom for prayers, I opened my eyes and the nun was on the other side of the room and all the kids had already lined up. She’d been waiting for me to stop praying. Pointing to me, she said to the other children, ‘This is how I want you to pray.’ I had become a model Catholic.”

Charles was eventually asked to be an altar boy and assist during mass. “I’m amazed I got away with it, and that I managed to avoid taking communion. The only excuse I could give was that I had sinned. Otherwise, I actually embraced those experiences. I grew to admire Jesus and his doctrine of turning the other cheek.”

On August 25, 1944, Allied troops rolled into Paris, liberating the French capital after more than four years of Nazi occupation. A week later, on September 2nd, Charles heard all church bells ringing. Lines of tanks filled the streets. The allied troops had crossed into Belgium, and within ten days, most of the country was liberated. “I saw the British and Canadians come in first, and then a couple of days later, the Americans. Suddenly, there was a huge scramble to get the hidden Jewish children reunited with their families.”

Bernard and Charles were reunited, but they didn’t yet know that their father had been killed. “We still thought he was coming back. We had no idea that the Nazis had murdered six million of us. Berlin still hadn’t fallen, and bombs were landing all around us. We played war games in fallen airplanes. American soldiers sometimes invited us to watch movies with them. I’d never seen one before.”

Charles Rotmil (far left) in the Jewish group home in Brussels after the war

When the war was over, Charles and Bernard were settled in a group home for orphans run by a Jewish relief agency. “There was a Jewish newspaper written in German that was published internationally. In it was a column listing people looking for survivors. Someone saw an ad looking for surviving Rotmils. It was placed by my aunt, my mother’s sister, Regina. They had left Europe in 1937 and lived in Peekskill, New York. She was ready to take us in.”

Bernard left for America first because the initial transport was a Liberty ship that didn’t allow children under sixteen. Charles followed later that year on a luxury liner named Île de France, along with ten other children and a chaperone. “Despite going through a few huge storms, I had an amazing experience on that ship,” Charles recounted. “They served wonderful food in the dining room, and I made sure to never miss a meal. I’ll never forget stopping in Southampton where we visited a shoe factory and all of us got a new pair of leather shoes donated by the owner.”

Charles arrived in New York on December 11, 1946. “We all stood on deck, looking at a totally new world. I was amazed and couldn’t take my eyes off the skyscrapers. Seeing a city that hadn’t been directly touched by the war made me feel like I was on another planet. It took four hours to dock, and I was spellbound the entire time. I was especially struck by the noise, as well as the color of the bright yellow cabs. In Europe, every car I’d ever seen was black.”

Charles was greeted by his aunt and uncle, as well as Peekskill’s judge. His arrival from Belgium was big event for the small city. The judge had done all the legal work, and many citizens had made donations to help cover his fare. “I arrived wearing a cape that went just below my knees. I had on short pants, my new shoes, and a beret. In Belgium, I looked great. In New York, my aunt and uncle were shocked at my attire. I didn’t realize how differently I was dressed compared to what people wore in America.”

Having believed that America was beautiful and that the streets were paved with gold, Peekskill was a shock. “The city was new. Compared to the buildings in Europe, these ones seemed to be made out of cardboard. My aunt and uncle lived in a very small apartment, so I had to sleep in an alcove off the bathroom on a steel fold-up bed.” Charles cried every night for a full year. “I was very unhappy transplant. I was homesick and missed my mother, father and sister. I knew no English and experienced intense culture shock.”

Less than a month after his arrival—at fourteen, without any English and having missed years of schooling—Charles was enrolled in tenth grade at the local high school. “I was in total darkness. Whenever someone talked to me, I’d repeat the same thing: ‘I can’t talk to you. I’m busy.’ I couldn’t understand anything in English class or biology. I understood what was happening in French class, but I couldn’t translate. I liked geometry best because I could understand it. But by the time June came around, I’d learned enough to barely pass my courses. I got Ds straight across the board.”

The next year, as a junior, everyone in his English class was asked to write an essay about their most memorable day. “In very simple language, I described the day the tanks came to the village and we were liberated. As the teacher read those two pages in front of the class, tears poured from her eyes. I couldn’t figure out why. I thought everybody had had days like that.”

Almost forty years later—after living in New York City as a photographer, painter, and filmmaker—Charles starting writing about the war again. After moving to Portland, Maine in 1982, he earned an MFA degree in writing from Goddard College and wrote his thesis, “Coming out of Silence,” about the Holocaust. Charles went on to teach foreign languages to high school students.

In 1992, after attending a conference with 3,000 other Hidden Children, Charles started to share his story with small groups of people. Soon he began to speak to large groups at schools all across Maine and his story has impacted thousands of students.

Father Bruno with a group of Jewish boys he saved

“The wounds are deep. What the Germans did is unforgettable and unforgivable. I will never come to terms with all that happened,” Charles told me, “but speaking at schools helps with the pain.” In his talks, he explains the injustice and dangers of prejudice, which comes from “pre-judgment” and is never okay. He quotes Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi party’s propaganda minister: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” a sentence that has particular resonance today. Charles acknowledges that we live in a very difficult world, but he always prays for peace and remains an optimist.

Father Bruno’s rescue efforts were vast and ultimately saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish children. He was recognized by Yad Vashem—The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel—as being among the “Righteous Among the Nations,” as were Andre and Helene Luyckx. Charles views all the people that helped him as saints, and believes they are all in heaven now because of their good deeds. “I will be forever thankful to them and am deeply gratified to still be in touch with the Luyckx children.”

In his quest to heal from the trauma of the Holocaust, Charles has retraced his steps through Europe. He’s been to the site of the train crash and had made multiple visits to the Rouen cemetery where his mother and sister are buried. He’s walked through Auschwitz, honoring his father. Charles also traveled the world to attend conferences and meetings for Hidden Children, and even spoke to Eli Wiesel at one of them.

Despite his tragic past, Charles says he’s happy now. He has 21 descendants—four children, ten grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren—and is enjoying his retirement in Maine with his partner, Cathryn. His career as a photographer has helped him focus on beauty, which he says can be found everywhere. “My heart was fully in it. I loved to bring out the beauty of the people I photographed.”

I would like to heartily thank Charles for all the time he spent working with me on this article, as well as his decades educating young people about the Holocaust. The willingness to open ourselves up to stories of suffering helps facilitate the healing that desperately needs to happen in the world. My aunt Bronia was one of only 5,000 Polish children out of a million to survive the war. The odds were so slim, that every young life saved was an unlikely triumph. I have immense awe and gratitude and for people like Father Bruno and the Luyckx family, whose hearts were big and brave enough to put their lives at risk to help save the most vulnerable. They were beacons of light during a time of such vast horror and darkness, and a perennial inspiration for us all to take a stand for justice, kindness and compassion.