Francine Christophe is an extraordinary survivor of the Holocaust. Born in 1933, Christophe spent her early childhood years in French internment camps before being deported with her mother in 1944 to the Nazi Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Because Christophe’s father was a French prisoner of war, Francine and her mother had been given the “privilege” of bringing something small with them from France to the camp in Germany. They brought two small pieces of chocolate.
Christophe’s mother had a heart for a young woman with them named Helene, who faced the frightening task of giving birth in the camp. She recounts the incredible story of what became of Helene and her two pieces of chocolate in the video below.
Francine Christophe recounts her experiences at the hands of the Nazis – and her family’s comparatively happy ending—in her memoir, From a World Apart: A Little Girl in the Concentration Camps.