Ottawa’s Denise Paroli could never talk about the Holocaust without breaking down in tears.
Born in Paris in 1932, Denise Szerman was the daughter of Polish immigrants who had moved to France to escape the pogroms of Eastern Europe. France was then one of the few countries in the world to welcome Jewish immigrants, and Paris was a thriving centre of Jewish culture.
Denise was just seven when the Second World War broke out in September 1939 and eight when France fell to the Nazi Blitzkrieg. Her experiences in German-occupied France would mark the rest of her life.
“She was always in tears when she talked about it,” said her daughter, Ava Paroli. “It was a very difficult subject to talk about. My mother would cry a lot. She never wanted to go back to Paris”
Denise Paroli, a devoted mother who was married to a fellow Holocaust survivor for 61 years, died last month. She was 87.
In 1940, she was one of 150,000 Jews living in Paris. German administrators targeted them for persecution: The Nazis bombed seven synagogues in the city and S.S. Capt. Theodor Dannecker ordered the “Aryanization” of its Jewish businesses, their forfeiture to non-Jews.
Thousands were arrested, and in 1942, the Germans began to round up foreign and stateless Jews and send them to concentration camps, where most were killed. In June 1942, Jews were ordered to wear yellow Star of David armbands so that they could be more easily identified.
The Szerman family lived in fear and watchfulness. On July 16, 1942, the Germans initiated what’s known as the Vélodrome d’Hiver Roundup, a mass arrest of Jews in Paris. It was part of a series of roundups that took place across the country.
The Szermans learned of the action and went into hiding, but Denise’s aunt insisted on returning to her apartment to secure some photos of her husband, who had been taken by the Nazis in April. She was arrested, along with her daughter. They were deported and murdered in a death camp — two of an estimated 50,000 Parisian Jews who would be killed during the Holocaust.
The Szermans escaped to a rural area of central France where the Germans had established a puppet French government. The Szermans lived and worked on a farm, but they were under constant threat of being exposed. When she was 10, Denise’s father developed cancer. Unable to access medicine, he died in 1944. Her mother dug potatoes with her bare hands to keep the family fed.
After Paris was liberated by the Allies in August 1944, the Szermans returned to the city. Denise started work as a seamstress to help support her family.
“All of this happened to her by the time she was 12,” says her son, Ralph Paroli.
Szerman had lost most of her extended family to the Holocaust in Poland. One uncle, however, had survived Auschwitz and moved to Montreal, where he worked as a furrier. He told one of his employees, Elie Paroli, about his young niece in Paris. The two began to correspond by letter, and in February 1957, she moved to Canada with her mother and younger brother.
Elie Paroli had lived through the Holocaust in France, too, by hiding his identity. They were married in May 1957. The Parolis had three children, Ralph, Jenny, and Ava.
“My mom was meant to be a mom,” says Ava. “She lived for her kids.”
“For her, family was the most important thing,” says Ralph. “Her kids were her life.”
Denise Paroli taught her children the skills of independence: cooking, cleaning, sewing, baking, responsibility. She believed in helping the less fortunate. She stressed the value of education since she had been denied one.
She would stay up in bed, knitting, until all of her children were in the door. When her son, Ralph, stayed late at school while working on his doctorate, she would have a hot meal ready for him, even if he came in at midnight.
The Parolis sold their home in Montreal and moved to Ottawa in 1992 to be closer to their son, who had settled in this city.
Although she didn’t like to talk about the Holocaust, it was often on her mind. Paroli worried whenever her children went into crowds. She didn’t like the low, grey clouds of late fall because they reminded her of the war. She always complained about the cold.
Five years ago, the Parolis’ daughter Jenny, a school teacher, died from cancer. Denise Paroli all but stopped talking, and Elie Paroli lost interest in the world. He died last year.
Ava Paroli says her mother made her stronger: “My mom was a fighter, determined, strong. She enriched the lives of all that knew her.”
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
