Ep 11: Deep Dive with Jonny Daniels and guest Mireille Taub P1 on hmTv

A Conversation with Mireille Taub Part I

In this episode of Deep Dive with Jonny Daniels on hmTv, host Jonny Daniels sits down with Mireille Taub, a Holocaust survivor, educator, and advocate for remembrance. Through an emotional and deeply personal conversation, she shares her family's harrowing escape from Nazi-occupied France, the power of resilience, and the importance of preserving history.

Key Discussion Points:

• Early life in Paris: Born in 1938, Mireille recounts her family's immigrant roots, her parents' determination, and their life before the war.
• Escaping Nazi-occupied France: Her family's perilous journey through France, Spain, and Portugal, ultimately reaching Ellis Island in 1940.
• Surviving and rebuilding: The impact of the Holocaust on her family, the loss of loved ones, and the resilience of those who escaped.
• Keeping history alive: The importance of storytelling, passing down artifacts like her father’s passport and uncle’s Jewish star, and ensuring the past is never forgotten.
• Lessons for today: The rise in antisemitism and the need for people to stand up against hate, even in modern times.
• A personal struggle: How she copes with today’s world events, her activism, and the moral responsibility to speak out.

Mireille’s testimony is a powerful reminder of the fragility of human rights and the enduring strength of survivors. She calls on listeners to learn from the past, fight against hatred, and stand up for what is right.

💡 Listen now for an unforgettable conversation about survival, courage, and hope.

Transcript

Deep Dive with Jonny Daniels
Guest: Mireille Taub

[Music]
Humanity Matters
[Music]

Jonny Daniels:
This is Jonny Daniels here at hmTv, and today I have the incredible opportunity to be in conversation with the most remarkable lady, Mrs. Mireille Taub. Thank you so much for being with me here today.

Mireille Taub:
My pleasure.

Jonny Daniels:
Now, today is not an easy day. I woke up this morning thinking about our conversation a lot. And obviously, with the terrible news from Israel, on one hand, I thought maybe we should push this off to another time. But then, thinking about it more and more, I realized how important conversations like this are—especially on days like today.

Mireille Taub:
I agree because stories like yours, through the difficulty, bring hope.

Jonny Daniels:
Now, let's get into a little bit of your story. Maybe you can tell us where you were born?

Mireille Taub:
I was born in Paris in 1938. My parents were originally from Poland, but they each immigrated to Paris separately as teenagers, met, and married in Paris. They had a very happy life there.

Jonny Daniels:
How wonderful. Why did your parents move from Poland to Paris?

Mireille Taub:
My father was orphaned at 13 and had gone to Warsaw to live with an older sister. He realized there was no future for him in Warsaw, so he saved his pennies and came into France on a visitor's visa. He overstayed his visa and became an illegal immigrant. He traveled with the crops in Brittany until he could learn to speak French fluently, which he did. He then decided farming life was not for him, so he went back to Paris and became involved with what had been one of the family businesses back in Poland—leatherworking. He became a skilled leatherworker.

My mother’s family was upper-middle class in Poland. Because of the economic situation after the war, my grandmother decided there was no future for them in Poland. She already had family in Paris, so they immigrated. My mother arrived in France at about 13 or 14 and finished her education there.

Jonny Daniels:
Wow, so you had this kind of Parisian upbringing?

Mireille Taub:
Not quite, since I was just a baby, but my parents were very Parisian.

Jonny Daniels:
How did your mother dress? Did she wear all the fancy Parisian clothing?

Mireille Taub:
My mother resembled a cross between Ava Gardner, Yvonne De Carlo, and Josephine Baker. She was a singer—she had voice lessons in Warsaw. I’m quite sure she didn’t continue them in Paris, but she had that kind of background. She was very, very beautiful.

Jonny Daniels:
Do you remember her singing to you?

Mireille Taub:
Always.

Jonny Daniels:
What kind of songs did she sing?

Mireille Taub:
She sang opera, French and American popular music—she just loved to sing. She was also very proper. As a teenager, I used to call her a “white glove lady” because everything had to be just right. And, of course, as a teenager, I was anything but.

Jonny Daniels:
So, you were born into this middle-class family, everything seemed normal, and then… you’re two years old when the world comes crashing down?

Mireille Taub:
Yes. My grandmother was a very wise woman. When she realized what was happening in Germany, she feared it would spread, so she turned to my father and said, "You have family in America, and I have family in America. Let’s write to them and see what can be done to get us out."

My father’s cousin, Charlie, who had become very wealthy in Chicago, managed to get the proper paperwork for us. But there was a complication—my mother had become a French national, and my sister and I were declared French at the local town hall. My father, however, had been an illegal immigrant, so he couldn’t become a citizen.

Somehow, cousin Charlie managed to get my father a Nansen passport—issued by the League of Nations for stateless people. My father was considered a “White Russian” because he had spent part of his early life in Russia before fleeing the Russian Revolution. That passport was our ticket out.

Jonny Daniels:
Unbelievable. So you were able to leave at that point?

Mireille Taub:
When the war broke out, we were on vacation with our extended family in Fontainebleau. On August 31, 1939, we rushed back to Paris. My father signed up for the French army because he wanted to fight for France, the country that had given him a good life.

At first, they told him to wait, but when the war worsened, he was called up at the end of May. He told my mother to pack a small suitcase, and we planned to take the train from Paris to Bordeaux. However, our train was bombed before we reached Bordeaux.

We got off the train and walked. I still have the shoes I wore during that journey.

Jonny Daniels:
That’s incredible.

Mireille Taub:
Yes. My mother also packed her sewing kit, which she used to repair our clothes along the way.

Jonny Daniels:
So even when you were leaving, was the thought that this was it—you were never coming back?

Mireille Taub:
Absolutely. My mother called her brother and told him to take certain things out of our apartment. He saved letters, photographs, and some valuable wedding gifts. Somehow, those items made it to us in America.

We walked for days and were eventually blocked near Bordeaux because the French government had retreated there to negotiate surrender. By sheer luck, my father ran into an American consulate officer who had arranged our papers. She needed to travel across France, so she offered my father a ride.

From there, we crossed into Spain and Portugal. My father booked passage on a Greek freighter, which was part of a convoy crossing the Atlantic to avoid German submarines. Three months later, on August 11, we arrived at Ellis Island.

Jonny Daniels:
That’s an incredible journey.

Mireille Taub:
It was.

Jonny Daniels:
Now, I see you brought something else with you—a yellow star with "Juif" written on it.

Mireille Taub:
Yes. This belonged to my Uncle Leon. He wore it in occupied France. He was caught in a roundup and taken to a police station. By sheer coincidence, the secretary at the station was a woman he had met days earlier while buying food. He had been kind to her, and she repaid him by helping him escape. He eventually made it to Casablanca, where he boarded a ship to the U.S.

Jonny Daniels:
That’s amazing.

Mireille Taub:
It is. It shows how kindness and luck intertwined during that time.

Jonny Daniels:
You are the keeper of history.

Mireille Taub:
I have always known who I was. As a retired teacher, I brought my experience into my middle school classrooms because it’s so important to connect to the past to understand the present—and, hopefully, build a better future.

Jonny Daniels:
That’s incredibly powerful.