Friends separated by Holocaust reunite in LA after 76 years
LOS ANGELES (AP) — When Alice Gerstel bid an emotional farewell to her family's closest friends in October 1941, she was hopeful she'd see "Little Simon" Gronowski again. And she did — 76 years later and half a world away from where they were separated in Brussels.
Gerstel and her Jewish family had hidden in the Gronowskis' home for nearly two weeks before her father sent word from France that he had reached a deal with a smuggler who would get her, her siblings and their mother safely out of Nazi-occupied Belgium.
The Gronowskis, also Jewish, decided to stay. They hid for 18 months until the Nazis came knocking at the family's door and put Simon, his sister and mother on a death train to Auschwitz.