Marion Joseph Wimpfheimer recounts the life of her family as wine-makers in Osthofen, a small town in the Rhineland of Germany. When the Nazis prevented non-Jews from working for Jews, Marion's family was forced to leave the winery behind. They were hoping to get visas to the U.S., but were rounded up in Mannheim and sent to Rivesalte and Gurs in Vichy France. After struggling to find food and survive there, her parents. her brother and Marion were sent to a transit camp in Marseille (her mother at the Center Bompard and her father at Camp des Milles) only to find out that their U.S. visas had expired. At that point when she was 12 years old, Marion's parents were deported to Poland, and she was sent to live in a Chateau near Limoges with other girls by OSE - (Œuvre de secours aux enfants -- a children's aid organization). When the Nazi's occupied Vichy France, Marion went into hiding with an elderly French couple who wanted to adopt her. After the war her brother, who was in hiding on a nearby farm, reunited with her and arranged for the two of them to emigrate to the U.S., when Marion was 16. She finished high school at night in New York, married there, and has two daughters and four grandchildren. Marion lives in Ithaca where she and her husband retired to be near family.
