Solange Lebovitz
b. August 6, 1930
Birthplace: Paris, France
Religious Identity: Jewish
“The French man’s wife took me to Normandy to live with an older Catholic couple. Barbier was the name. They lived in a very nice house with a garden, sheep, and apple fields, and they made their own cider.”
Solange Lebovitz was a hidden child in Paris and throughout different parts of France during World War II. Her family sensed the danger of the Nazis and decided it would be best to split up and go into hiding. Solange was sent to live with an older Catholic couple, where she adopted the identity of a Catholic girl who attended church and school.
She was hidden for two and a half years with different couples around France, before eventually being liberated by the American forces. However, she remained with her Catholic guardians because she did not know her family’s whereabouts. Her entire family survived and was eventually reunited after the war.
Solange met her husband, Larry, in 1952 in Paris. They made their way to the United States, where they settled in Pittsburgh. At the time of her In Celebration of Life interview (2016), she had two children, five granddaughters, and one great-granddaughter.
“When my daughter was in college, I decided I had to make up for the studies that I had missed, so I went to the University of Pittsburgh, and I was so dumb, I didn’t know what to start with. Finally, I graduated. It took me eight years. I graduated Cum Laude as an English and French literature major.”
-Biography adapted from “In Celebration of Life: The Living Legacy Project” (2016)
Solange’s Poetry
Outrage and Hope
“OUTRAGE and HOPE”, her first book of poetry, expresses the pathos of Holocaust survivors, and is a testimony for future generations to accept the challenge to eradicate prejudice and antisemitism.
CHUTZ-POW! Superheroes of the Holocaust
Solange is featured in CHUTZ-POW! Volume III: The Young Survivors. Published in 2018, this third volume tells the stories of men and women who survived the Holocaust as children. Some were invisible, hidden children who stayed out of sight. Others were visible, hidden children who assumed a false identity and had to learn new customs and new names. Some children survived concentration camps and ghettos, while others were able to escape with their families intact. Heroes emerge in each story – a mother who acquired false papers for her family against the wishes of her husband; another mother who stood up to Nazi guards to protect her children; non-Jewish families who took in Jewish children, risking their own lives.
SCRIPT BY YONA HARVEY • ART BY VINCE DORSE
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