Frida Scheps Weinstein

Who is Frida Scheps Weinstein?

Frida Scheps was born in 1936 to a Russian-Jewish immigrant family living in Paris, France. Frida's father, an engineer by profession, wanted to move the family to Palestine. Shortly before the war, Mr. Scheps travelled to Jerusalem to pave the way for the move. While he was making the necessary arrangements, war broke out in Europe, and Frida and her mother were trapped in France.

In 1940, the Nazis invaded France and the persecution of the Jews of France began. At first, various laws restricting the rights of the French Jewish community were enacted. But by 1942, the Germans began rounding up Jews and shipping them to various death camps in Poland.

Seeking somehow to save her six year-old daughter, Mrs. Scheps placed Frida in a Catholic convent school at the Chateau de Beaujeu. Isolated from her past, Frida soon began to forget her Jewish roots. She soon became the best student in her class at catechism and asked to be baptized as a Catholic. Mrs. Scheps wrote to her daughter, begging her not to abandon her faith.

Frida received packages from her mother on a regular basis. One day, however, the packages stopped coming. Frida understood that the Germans had taken her mother away. In the middle of the night, Frida was haunted by dreams reminding her of her Jewish heritage. At the end of the war, nine year-old Frida left the convent school. Two years later, she was reunited with her father in Jerusalem.