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Thanks to the kind women Balthus and Allard, the children are able to go into hiding in the Fraiture castle and survive the war.
Benjamin Sztainke and Khana Zandlowicz were both born in Kutno, Poland: he on 20 May 1896 and she on 1 April 1901. In August 1924 Benjamin Sztainke left Dortmund in Germany for Seraing in Belgium. Here he started working as a shoemaker. In 1927, suspected of communist propaganda, he is put under surveillance by the Belgian authorities. A few years later, in June 1927, Khana Zandlowicz moved from Poland to Belgium to also settle in Seraing. In May 1930, her sister Gitla joined her, but in August of the same year Gitla was deported and left for Paris in France.
On 5 April 1928, Benjamin Sztainke and Khana Zandlowicz were married in Seraing. From this marriage three daughters were born: Marie on 7 June 1928, Julia on 13 January 1933 and Esther on 15 November 1938. On the eve of the German invasion the family lived at 61 Rue Marais in Seraing, their last known address.
As soon as hostilities started in May 1940, the Sztainke family fled to France. However, they returned to Belgium three or four weeks later. Benjamin Sztainke worked as a labourer in the “Ougrée-Marihaye” factory, Khana stayed at home as a housewife. Marie and Julia go to school, while Esther has not yet reached school age.
The couple were registered in the Seraing municipal Jewish Register on 28 November 1940. On 23 March 1942 the family was entered in a new register, that of the local committee of the Jewish Association in Belgium. Benjamin Sztainke was on the list of Jews forced to do forced labour. On 3 August 1942, together with several dozen other local Jews, he was summoned by the Liège Labour Office. These men are deported to the Organisation Todt labour camps in the Pas-de-Calais. On 31 October 1942, the Germans emptied these camps of foreign Jews, who they deported the same day with transport XVI via Mechelen to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Benjamin Sztainke is number 665 on the convoy list.
Daughter Julia was placed in hiding in a holiday camp at the Château de Fraiture through the mediation of Mrs Balthus and Mrs Paula Allard. Paula Allard was a social worker at the factory “Ougrée-Marihaye” and would – with exceptional dedication – take care of the rescue of Jewish children whose fathers worked at the factory. Marie and Esther later joined their sister in the castle. Then the Jewish children, who had to be evacuated, were placed with foster families. Marie went to the farm of the Lecrenier family in the hamlet of Cornemont in the municipality of Louveigné, and then to the Lekeu family. Julia and Esther stayed in Chanxhe for a short time before being sent to the farm of a related family, the Georis-Lecrenier family, also in Cornemont. The three sisters lived there until the end of the war. As soon as her daughters were safe, Khana Zandlowicz left home and hid in the commune of Seraing.
Benjamin Sztainke did not return from deportation. His wife Khana Zandlowicz and their three daughters Marie, Julia and Esther survived the Nazi persecution.