France, 1943: Betty Bloom (13) escapes to Switzerland. Her sister Ruth (17) stays behind with the Resistance:

Ruth was told by her committee there's a Jewish child in Grenoble left by her parents, an infant under a year old, in an orphanage, & the Gestapo had found out. The Gestapo were coming to arrest this baby. 

Somehow, news got out to Ruth's committee. They wondered what can we do for this child? So, she dressed up; my sister dressed up as a German officer. With her good Berliner accent, in her 'Berlinerisch' [Berlin dialect]. With boots & hat, all in black. She demanded this child. 

The person in charge of the orphanage didn't want to give her away. She said, 'What's wrong? We like this baby, we love her. We'll look after her.' Ruth said: 'If you don't give us this child, we close the orphanage'.

They gave her the child; she took the child to a safe home & the child survived the war. Got eventually to Israel & she was told that she was saved by a person. She found out who through the rabbi, who knew that Ruth was then in Israel. She was told where Ruth was. 

One day she turned up at Ruth's kibbutz. Can you imagine? Knocked on the door: "I am Celine. You are my 2nd mother. You gave me birth a 2nd time." They did everything. They had passes, they had costumes. When I first heard the story, cold crept up my… She saved this child.

After that episode, the Gestapo were looking for Ruth. Because, you know, somebody walks as a Gestapo officer into an orphanage & goes out with a child. 

Her committee said to her: 'Ruth you can’t stay here anymore. A, you endanger your own life, B, you endanger our lives'. So she decided to cross into Spain. She knew Switzerland wasn't for her, she was over 16, they might send her back. She met up with a group, it took them 4 days across the Pyrenees to cross into Spain. The "chemin de la liberté". Walking at night, in ice: very very difficult.

In Spain, they were well received. Eventually she got to Cadiz. She was given the option of either going to Palestine or England. But to come to England, she'd have had to wait till after the war ended, it wasn't simple. This was in '44. She was in terrible quandary.

In the end she got a permit to go to Palestine on a legal ship. But on arrival, she was interned by the British because she couldn't prove that she was Ruth Schütz because she didn't cross the border with a passport. You know, what did the British expect? 

But by then my Aunt Betty was living in Haifa because she'd emigrated in 1936. She heard that Ruth was there & she went to the authorities, in Atlit, & she said: 'she's my niece' & she proved it by—she showed photos. I don't know what, anyway, they let her go.