“She abandoned her father in the last moments to escape Auschwitz. 20 years later, he sends a message. But before we start, please give the video a like and make sure to subscribe to Wonderbot and hit the bell so you’ll never miss any uploads from us. Choosing one out of the two people we love the most is no doubt one of the most distressing things a person would be asked to do. But the word war makes all the distressing things way more common for civilians during the most unfortunate of all the wars ever to be written in the books of history. Such incidents took place every day, from the infamous little girl in a red coat who walked expressionless on the roads of the ghetto in the Schindler’s List, to the pianist who lived through the unbearable during the Holocaust. Everyone had a story of agony. One such story remains less known, till date. The story of a woman named Claire Prowesser and her father Chaskell Prowesser. A story of choices and separation, love and loss, guilt and redemption that will make you believe the unbelievable.
On the outskirts of Hamburg, Germany, in 1922, Clara Prowser was born in a Jewish family with strong religious beliefs. Her father, Chaskell Prowisser, was from Poland, while her mother, Channa, belonged to a far-off place in Germany. She was their first child, and they used to call her Clarkson with love. Luckily, the Prowesser family wasn’t going to live in Germany for too long. Clara was not even 5 years old when her family moved to the West, in Brussels, Belgium. Chaskell, her father, hoped to get a better job in Brussels. Sadly, things were never in the poor man’s favor, who loved his family the most but found himself in front of money. The Prowser family was never able to maintain a stable life, not even in the new city. Chaskal Prowser moved to Brussels without a work permit, which was the biggest obstacle in getting a well-paid job. They were not even granted the permanent residency permit. Seeing his children struggle with life, Chaskell, a family man in the dark bit of depression, he started drinking often, and this brought him into trouble with the police every now and then. What made things worse was the bitter reality that Chaska was expelled from Belgium for not being a resident and was sent back to Germany. Claire, who began to use her name’s French version, Claire, saw everything falling apart at a tender age. It impacted her badly enough that when she was a young teen, she made a decision to get a hold on things. Being the eldest among four siblings, Claire took a big step in order to help her father get out of the dark.
In order to support her family and give them the stability they always wished for, Claire Prowser started working at the age of 15. Not only the young teen started working, but also she was the highest paid person in her family. Trying to get help for her father, she even wrote to the Queen Mother to let Chaskal permanently live in Belgium, as the chances of earning were better there. When nobody was expecting any response from her, Queen Elizabeth did reply. It wasn’t just a reply, but the much-needed help that Claire would remember for the rest of her life. Chaskell was granted a work permit along with a fixed salary of the same pay as Claire’s earnings. The good times didn’t last for too long, and this time, not even the Queen could have helped the Prowesser family. In May 1940, when things finally started to settle down for the family, World War II hit Belgium. The Nazis took over the country, and the streets that seemed so pleasing a day before were now filled with terror. Claire was just an 18-year-old when all this started, and in the next two years, they saw everything worsen every day.
Mass torture of the Belgian Jews was inhumane. Fear was in the air in the days of darkness when synagogues were burnt to ashes, Jews were removed from several jobs, and every business firm had to put up a board mentioning if they had any Jewish employees. It was mandatory for Jews to wear a yellow star band on their arm whenever in public. Claire got a ray of light in that darkness. Clara was always a brave-hearted woman. She denied to bend the knees in front of the Nazi empire. She was an active member of the meetings of the communist underground, in the place where people shared similar rage against the Nazis. Claire met the charming man named Philippe Zeiper, but this was not acceptable by her family, especially her father. Even after all the obstacles, Claire and Philippe married in 1942. In the morning, Claire used to work as a tailor, and by evening, she used to take part in a completely different work. to plan on how to defeat the Nazis and how to save the lives of more and more people.
Little did she know, she has to leave her own father in the last moments of his life. While the orders were strict for all the Jews to get straight to the police and get their names registered, Claire and Felipe never turned up. Felipe managed to get forged green passports that became his representation of being a Belgian, and the fact that he was a Jew remained completely hidden. Claire and her family were immigrants, and yet the danger was similar. Claire somehow got a yellow ID card as a foreigner with the help of her contacts in the system. This card didn’t require any stamp for Jews, and after finding one good opportunity, the couple went underground. They were still working the resistance by sharing anti-Nazi pamphlets within the colonies. However, their nightmares were yet to turn to reality.
Two years after the Nazis invaded Belgium, their cruelest intention started to show up. In the summer of nineteen forty-two, the same year Claire and Philippe got married, thousands of Jews were commanded to show up in the police headquarters of their respective cities. The horror knocked the Prowessor’s home when Claire’s sister Edith got a warrant to visit the Nazis. Claire begged her younger sister to stay and not report to the Germans, but she had to go, and that was the last time that Claire saw her. Nobody heard from Edith ever again. Unfortunately, just like her younger sister, there were hundreds of Jews whose whereabouts were nowhere to be found. They all met the same fate – that was the end for them. All the Jews were being caught and sent to a detention camp in Mechelen. When Chaskell, Claire’s father, was out for his daily walk, which was a must for the old man suffering from asthma, the German secret police, the Gestapo, was aware of all the Jews left in the town, and they arrested each and every last remaining Jew that was on records with them. In January 1943, he was taken to the detention camp in Mechelen.
The devastating reality was yet to be faced in the detention camp when the Prowessor family was going to be reunited. Being Jewish was enough reason for one to be scared. Felipe and Claire were still underground and trying to do whatever they could for the cause. Until one day, they met a stranger. According to him, he was one of the Belgian Communists and was in desperate need of their help. The kindhearted couple trusted him, and that proved to be their biggest mistake. This so-called Belgian Communist was hired by the Nazis to find Jews who were in hiding. Once he got to the couple’s secret place, he reported it to the Nazis, and the same night, they were surrounded by German soldiers. There was a knock on the door that let the disaster in. They were betrayed.
At 3 am, Philippe and Claire heard a knock on their door, and the moment the door was opened, a bunch of Gestapo entered with pistols pointing at the young couple. When they searched the couple’s room, they found the anti-Nazi pamphlets. Felipe was hit by one of the soldiers in his face. When Claire ran to rescue her husband, she was beaten too. But what about the fake papers? They were taken as prisoners, and even their fake IDs didn’t aid any help this time. Felipe was badly beaten, and looking at her husband close to falling unconscious on the floor, Claire admitted that they were Jews. The couple was thrown in a truck with many other Jews and taken away. What happened next was just the beginning.
Claire and Philippe were driven to the detention camp in Mechelen. They too faced all that horrible process of leaving all the jewelry and other valuables behind. The newlywed Claire was allowed to keep her wedding ring, and that was all. In those times of misery, the couple was going to see a familiar face among the crowd of detention camp. Chaskell, Claire’s father, who was sent to Mechelen, was the one who saw them from a distance and came running to his daughter and son-in-law. He told them how he used to wait there whenever any truck arrived to see if any of his family members were sent in. They didn’t know whether they should be happy to see each other after so long or sad to see each other in the detention camp. Their identities were gone, and all they had left were the numbers written on the clothes that were given to them. Now, they were not Claire and Philippe, but 254 and 255, and “XX” was written next to the piece of cardboard. What did this “XX” even mean?
They were in the detention camp for over three months before they heard the news of further transport. The prisoners were surviving on one meal a day, that too was a little piece of bread and cabbage soup. They lived in the fear of the ruthless camp commander and the aggressive trained dogs, and the stories of what was happening to the Jews in Poland was making it hard to pass every moment. Soon, Philippe and Claire decoded the meaning of “AXEX” that was written along with their numbers. It was the number of the train that would be taking them to an unforeseen track. On Convoy 20. When Chaskal got to know that his daughter will be taken away from him, it affected him deeply enough that he felt severely ill. He was bedridden and suffering from high fever. Claire couldn’t leave her father behind, and she knew something had to be done. Claire found someone to switch her name with her father’s so they could be together. It was a risky thing to do, as anyone caught with wrong numbers would be punished by death. She traded her less than a year old wedding ring to trade her father’s name on the train with the couple.
On April 19th, 1943, all the Jews with “XX” on their cardboard piece were called and sent inside Convoy 20. Previously, these were trains taking the prisoners to the concentration camps, but this time it was a series of awfully confined cattle cars. Claire, Philippe, and Chaskell were put in the congested wagon with around 50 inmates. The warning was given to all of them that if anyone tries to escape, all the remaining people on the train would be punished. The train headed north, but the couple would never reach the destin place. The couple wasn’t sure where this train was heading, but they were sure of one thing – that this will be the end of them. Felipe shared his idea with his beloved. He was planning to escape, and he was planning to do it right away because once the train crosses the Belgium border, it will become impossible for them to survive. Claire couldn’t leave her father in that situation, and her father couldn’t jump either. He was unconscious and could barely move. His fever was high from the past two days since they got on the train, his condition continuously deteriorated.
“How could she just leave him like that? She loved him the most in this world. So far, she did all she could in her life to help him.”
“I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to jump from the train,” Claire said to her husband.
Felipe told her that if they don’t jump now, they’ll eventually die once they reach any concentration camps.
The stress was too much to take, and Claire falls unconscious next to her father.
When she finally woke up, Claire saw her father and her husband. Her father was still lying, hardly breathing. Her husband said it was now or never, and she could see herself in the middle of nowhere, stuck in the dilemma. Even though it was a choice she’ll be regretting for many years to come, yet she gave up in front of her husband’s pleas. Philippe carried Claire up towards the window. For a moment, she turned back and looked at her father for the last time. She got out of the window and stayed hidden from the Nazi cops, as she knew they’d be shot if they got caught. It was time for her to jump off the train, and so she raised her hands to protect her skull and jumped. After rolling through the field, she was finally conscious and out of the train where she left her father.
To her surprise, even her husband was nowhere to be found. Claire was crying and looking for her husband. She couldn’t believe her luck when she saw Philippe running towards her. They made it. The struggle was still far from over. They were still in those prison clothes, and anyone would know they were Jews. Claire and Philippe kept on walking until they reached a village. Hiding, the couple made their way to the village’s church. They were taking a risk again, but they had to trust someone, so they told the priest about it. The priest could have easily told the Nazis about them, but he didn’t. In fact, he handed over 50 francs to the couple and told them the way to the nearest city, Lich. That’s where they found their non-Jew friends, who kept them in hiding for over one and a half years until the war was over.
Survivor guilt: Claire and Philippe were among the countable Jews who got through the Holocaust. In order to get away from the miserable memories, the couple moved to South America. Claire, however, never got over the regret of leaving her father on the train that day. Living with the guilt of letting her father die was a burden she couldn’t take. It didn’t let her sleep through the nights. But she didn’t know that soon she’d be receiving an answer in the most unpredictable way. In 1962, this couple visited Israel, and one evening when Claire was walking down the lane of Tel Aviv with her husband, a woman called her name, Claire. But Claire did not know her, and this woman knew her nickname that was hardly ever used since her father died. But the woman seemed to know Claire, and she continued, “I’ve been searching for you for many years.” She understood from Claire’s expressions that she was confused. Claire said, “I don’t know you.” And the stranger replied, “But I do know you.” This woman was about to say something that would change Claire’s life forever. It was a message from Chaskell, Claire’s father. Claire’s expression changed when the woman took her father’s name. She’s been looking for her for 20 years. The woman said, “I was there in the very moment.” Claire knew everything was going to be changed. The woman explained that the day when she jumped off the train, this lady was on the train too. When Chaskell opened his eyes on the train, he desperately looked for his daughter and shouted “Clarkson,” that’s what he used to call her. The people around him told him that she and her husband jumped off the train, and the old man’s eyes shined out of joy. Even when he could hardly speak, everyone could see the joy in his face. And then he said to all an announcement he made an announcement in the train that if anyone ever makes it out as a free person, he or she should give this message to his daughter, that he died a happy father. He said he was the happiest person on earth to listen that his daughter had escaped. Chaskal Prowser died on the way before the train reached Auschwitz. He died of fever on the way.
20 years later, Claire was standing in a market and being told that her father passed away. His message finally reached his daughter. She was glad that her father died in peace and that her decision to jump off wasn’t wrong, but it made him proud. What came to her as the biggest relief was the fact that her father never faced the cruelty of Auschwitz. Claire and Philippe were told that an hour after they jumped off the train, it was attacked by the Belgian resistance, who managed to save a number of people inside the train. Out of 1631 people sent in that train, just 10 or 20 were able to jump off. The rest reached its destination around three days later, on April 22nd, 1943. Out of those people on Convoy 20, only 153 were able to finally make it. And this woman was one of the survivors.
Mysteries and revelations: The couple was never able to find the name or anything about this mysterious woman who appeared out of the blue just to deliver the last words of Claire’s father to her. More than 28,508 Belgian Jews lost their lives in the Holocaust, and Chaskal was one of them. Later on, the couple moved to Israel, and even today, they tell the story of the Holocaust to people, to pass on the knowledge and what war cost them and many others. And that’s how Matan Roach Leets heard of her. In his childhood, Matan’s grandparents told him about a woman who left her father dying to escape the Nazis. Years later, even when Matan became a documentary filmmaker, the story stuck on the back of his mind. He decided to know if this woman is alive or not, and that’s how this documentary was made. For a documentary named “I Have a Message for You,” he was awarded the World Press Photo Award for Long Form and nominated for the News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Documentary. So Matan Roach Leets is the man who brought this story in front of the new generation.
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