Search
Efraim Silberman was born on December 14, 1901, in Iwla, Poland, the son of Josef Silberman and Malka Teitelbaum. In 1921, he moved to Berlin, where he worked as a salesman and window designer. On January 3, 1928, he arrived in Antwerp on a tourist visa to visit his sick brother. Shortly thereafter, he applied for a residence permit. Efraim learned the diamond trade and lived alternately in Berchem and Antwerp.
In Antwerp, he met Euga (Augusta) Holzer, born on July 18, 1906, in Dukla, Poland. Her family had emigrated to Belgium in 1907. Efraim and Euga married on May 26, 1931, in Berchem and settled at Thaliastraat 30. Their eldest daughter, Anna Esther (Annie), was born on October 30, 1932, and their youngest daughter, Myriam, on August 9, 1938.
By the time Nazi Germany invaded Belgium on May 10, 1940, Efraim was a diamond cutter. The family tried to escape south but was forced to return to Antwerp on May 11 or 12, 1940. They had gotten off the train at a stop and did not return in time, so the train continued without them. Augusta’s mother and brother did manage to reach France and survived the war.
In Antwerp, the family had to adjust to anti-Jewish regulations. Efraim registered in the municipal Jewish registry on December 18, 1940, and on April 6, 1942, they became members of the Association of Jews in Belgium. In the summer of 1942, Efraim was deported to northern France for forced labor. In October 1942, he was deported on transport XVI to Auschwitz-Birkenau, but managed to jump off the train on Belgian territory and returned to Antwerp, where he could no longer find his family.
During his absence, Augusta had placed the children with their housekeeper, Marie, and received help from Charles Ollinger, a teacher from Mons, to get them to safety. The family went into hiding on a farm in Frameries and later in a house in Mons, where they pretended to be Flemish refugees. Efraim was reunited with his family while in hiding in Mons. He remained in hiding and was not allowed to go outside. The children went to school nearby. Across the street was a local German headquarters, the Kommandatur. When Myriam was playing outside one day, a German soldier spoke to her and called her a “beautiful child.” After that, her mother no longer allowed her to play outside.
The family was in Mons when the city was liberated on September 2, 1944. They then returned to Antwerp, where Efraim resumed his diamond business. In 1953, the family emigrated to Israel but returned to Antwerp in 1957. After many legal proceedings, Efraim and Augusta were granted Belgian citizenship. In 1971, their rescuer, Charles Ollinger, was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations for saving eighteen members of the Holzer family.