When Louise was only six months old, she went into hiding with her parents and older brother. The family hid on the 4th floor of a rowhouse in Amsterdam for the duration of the war.
On June 6, 1944, U.S., British, and Canadian forces crossed from England onto the beaches of Normandy, France, signaling the beginning of defeat for the Nazis. During this time, air raids were common, and Louise and her family were forced to seek refuge on the staircase—the safest part of the house to which they had access. Louise’s mother had prepared an emergency basket for them to take with them during these raids.
Louise was three years old when the war ended and her family was freed. Not having been outside, Louise had difficultly initially being outside and adjusting to a world without walls. Yet, for Louise, the most traumatic part of her experience came after the war. Louise was encouraged to remain silent about her experience in hiding. She was told people did not want to talk about the Holocaust; they wanted to move on.
Louise and her family then moved to Stockholm, Sweden. In 1948, she returned to Holland, where she earned her degree in physical therapy. She married Sidney Z. Lawrence in 1965 and immigrated to the United States in 1967, settling in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1993. Today, Louise is a volunteer translator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and a member of the Memory Project Holocaust Survivors' writing group.
First Person series — Conversation with a Holocaust survivor [2005 season].
Why I volunteer
I volunteer at the USHMM because I think it is important to be part of the dissemination of information about the Holocaust, in honour and memory of my family.
Museum
