Bella YAKAR

THE YAKAR FAMILY:

Bella’s parents:

Josué Yakar was born on August 15, 1882 (or possibly 1881) in Constantinople, Turkey, and died on July 31, 1944 in Oswiecim, Poland. His wife was Corinne Yakar, née Behar, who was born on August 15, 1887 and died in 1935. They were married in 1911 in the 11th district of Paris and went on to have five children:

• Robert Yakar, who was born on June 25, 1911 in the 12th district of Paris.
• Bella (or Belline) Yakar, who was born on July 25, 1915 in the 12th district of Paris and died in Auschwitz at the age of 29. Her official date of death was August 5, 1944 (more details later in the biography).
• Joseph Yakar, who was born in 1918. In the 1950s, he was diagnosed as severely disabled. When his family was arrested in 1944, he was a member of the Forces Françaises Libres (Free French Forces) in Morocco. In 1945, he and his squad were sent to Ravensburg in Germany. He lived at a number of different addresses: in 1945, he was staying with Mrs. Moolenaar at 43, rue Croix de Seguey in Bordeaux, in the Gironde department of France. In the 50s and 60s, he lived at 6 rue de Cursol in Bordeaux, then at 41 rue de Landiras in Bordeaux, then at 21 rue de Strasbourg in Bordeaux, and lastly at 75 rue Broca, in the 13th district of Paris.
• Albert Yakar, who after the war lived at 23 avenue du Lac, in Aix-les-Bains, in the Savoie department of France.
• Juliette Yakar, who married Albert Le Faou. After the war she lived at 37 quai des Chartrons in Bordeaux and then at 48 rue de la Bienfaisance in the 8th district of Paris.

The Yakar family had their property confiscated for the first time from their home at 82 Cours d’Alsace, Bordeaux, in May 1942, after which they moved to 6 place des Bughes in Clermont-Ferrand, in the Puy-de-Dôme department of France in August 1942. Their three-story home in Clermont-Ferrand was rented unfurnished. The owners were Mr. Redon and his wife Henriette, née Desesbats, a sales clerk born in 1895, who lived at 17 rue St Genès in Clermont-Ferrand.

Josué Yakar was a hosiery salesman. In 1943, he fell sick and his daughter Belline had to take care of him. They each received an allowance of 10 francs. Josué Yakar, together with his children Robert and Belline, were arrested by the Gestapo at around 4pm on June 8, 1944. A Mr. Antoine Yakar witnessed the incident.

The family had their property confiscated twice in the Auvergne, despite already having lost everything in Bordeaux:

• from their home in Clermont-Ferrand. The owner of the building in which they lived testified to this on October 31, 1945:

“About a week later, on my way to our garden adjoining the aforementioned building, four gentlemen in civilian clothes arrived and introduced themselves: “GERMAN POLICE”. It must have been around 2 p.m. Two of these gentlemen took me to the bottom of the garden, where I stayed for about an hour at gunpoint. During this time, the other two entered the building and took away various items of furniture which they loaded into a van, including a sewing machine, an electric vacuum cleaner and several bulky parcels that appeared to be laundry. I later learned that the whole apartment had been looted, and even the poultry had been confiscated”.

• from a furniture storage facility belonging to the Huguet-Clairet transport company, owned by Mr. Huguet (born in 1905, of 13, rue Bonnabaud, Clermont-Ferrand) and located in Royat in the impasse de la Grande Porte. The looting occurred on December 29, 1944.

We have a list of some of the looted goods, which were worth a total of 34,400 French francs:

• clothes: 1 pair of poplin pajamas (500 F), 4 poplin undershorts (500 F), 1 blue wool bathrobe (500 F), 1 pigskin belt (300), 8 pairs of wool sports socks (800 F), 2 white poplin shirts (500 F), 5 colored wool scarves (500 F), 12 colored batiste handkerchiefs (600 F), 1 pair of black sports shoes (1000 F).
• linen: 1 wool blanket, reversible, pink/white (2000 F)
• toiletries: 1 box of 100 razor blades (100 F), 1 chrome shaving kit (550 F), 12 colored terry towels (1300 F)
• miscellaneous: 1 pigskin riding crop (200 F), 1 pair of Champax prism binoculars (3500 F), 1 camera and 3 loaders (5000 F), 1 camera tripod (200 F), 1 30x spotting scope (500 F), 9 boxes of 3 unused films (900 F), 1 Leica camera (15,000 F)

Sources viewed at the Puy-de-Dôme departmental archives: refs. 66 W 2038, 68 W 44, 331 W 18, 368 W 82, 900 W 63 (Research carried out in 2016/2017 by a group of 11th grade students from the Ambroise-Brugière high school in Clermont- Ferrand (Allan Bulidon, Célia Couleaud, Vincent Debray, Léa Dexarcis, Clotilde Fernez, Mathilde Grivel and Clément Haffner) under the guidance of Frédéric Jarrousse, their history and geography teacher).

 

BIOGRAPHY OF BELLA (BELLINE) YAKAR:

 

Yakar Belline’s ancestors (1915-1944)

 

Bella (Belline) Yakar was deported on Convoy 77 from Drancy to Auschwitz on July 31, 1944.

Belline lived in Paris until 1927, where she appears to have lived at several addresses including Rue Petion and François Neufchateau in the 13th district, before moving to 82 cours d’Alsace-Lorraine in Bordeaux, in the Gironde department. Corinne, Bella’s mother, died on December 29, 1935 (almost certainly in Bordeaux). The family members all became French citizens as a result of Josué Yakar having been naturalized as French by decree in 1926. Josué Yakar and his children, Robert and Bella, left Bordeaux in August 1942, managed to cross into the Free zone in the southern half of France and set up home at 6 place des Bughes in Clermont-Ferrand, in the Puy-de-Dôme department. Bella was transferred from Vichy, in the Allier department, to Drancy camp, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, on May 15, 1944 under prisoner number 25153. She was deported along with her father and her brother Robert on convoy 77, which left the Drancy camp for the Auschwitz camp in Poland on July 31, 1944. None of them ever returned to France.

Source: Shoah Memorial website

 

BELLA’S BROTHER JOSEPH, WHO SURVIVED:

Joseph Yakar

• August 29, 1918 – April 24, 2010
• Place of birth: Paris
• Place of death: Paris
• Josué and Corinne Yakar’s third child

Joseph Yakar was born in Paris on August, 1918. He was the son of Josué Yakar and Corinne Behar. He had two brothers and two sisters: Robert, born on June 25, 1911), Albert, born on May 20, 1922, Bella, born on July 25, 1915 and Julie, born on July 26, 1913. He was interned in Drancy camp on April 6, 1943 under prisoner number 20374. Although his name appears on the deportation list for Convoy 55, which set off for Auschwitz on June 23, 1943, the young man was not in fact deported. After the war, he described how he had escaped from Drancy camp on June 1, 1943 by hiding in the garbage pile. He succeeded in escaping from the camp and the camp staff must not have been not aware of it, as they added his name to the Convoy 55 deportation list. He went into hiding for a month at a friend’s house in Montmorency, in the Val-d’Oise department, then managed to get to Toulouse, in the Haute-Garonne department, with the intention of crossing the border into Spain. With the help of a network of Jewish resistance fighters, he managed to cross the Pyrenees, but was arrested by the Carabinieri (Spanish police) on August 29, 1943 in Montgarry in Spain, then imprisoned in Lerida, before being placed under house arrest in Onteniente, near Valencia, until November 29, 1943. In December 1943, a contingent of French prisoners, including Joseph Yakar, was given permission to join the Free French Forces in North Africa. He thus set off from Malaga aboard the cargo ship, Sidi-Brahim, from Malaga to Casablanca, in Morocco, on December 20, 1943. He immediately headed for Algeria to join the Staoueli C.O.S.S. (special forces) in Sidi Ferrach, Algeria. On September 21, 1944, his unit landed in Saint Tropez in the Var department of France. After having fought and been wounded in Alsace, he took part in the German campaign, with the 1st Parachute Strike Battalion, from January 1945 until the end of the war. His father, his sister Bella and his brother Robert, who were arrested in Clermont-Ferrand, were deported on Convoy 77 from Drancy to Auschwitz on July 31, 1944. They never came home. After the war, Joseph went back to live in Bordeaux and later moved back to the Paris area. He was awarded the status of Interned Resistance Fighter on June 10, 1975. Joseph Yakar died in Paris on April 24, 2010, at the age of 91.

 

Letter from Bella’s brother, Albert Yakar, dated January 2, 1948, requesting a death certificate for his sister. © French Defense Historical Service in Caen, Normandy. File on Bella Yakar, ref. 21 P 276 12167797

 

Inscription on the Wall of Names at the in Paris
(source: Shoah Memorial)

First name, surname: Bella Yakar, Date of birth: 25/07/1915, Place of birth: Paris, Convoy number: N°77, Departure date of the convoy: 31/07/1944, Place of departure of the convoy: Drancy Camp, Destination: Auschwitz, Position on the Wall of Names: slab no. 43, column no. 15, row no. 1.