Tribute to Armand Bulwa who passed away on Saturday, October 18, at the age of 96.

Unlisted OSE Funds Childhood Saves 09_11_2009 154. Armand Bulwa.

Aron, known as Armand, Bulwa was born on 27/12/1929 in Piotrkow (Russian Empire, currently Poland). He is the son of Abraham Bulwa and Esther Kaminska. He has a brother, Moïse, born in 1939.

Aron is 10 years old when the Jewish neighborhood where he resides is transformed into a ghetto in October 1939. Thanks to his father, Aron is hired in a glassworks located outside the ghetto in 1941. He thus escapes the week of roundups, unlike his mother and young brother, who are deported and murdered in the camp of Treblinka (Poland) in October 1942.

The ghetto is liquidated and Aron definitively loses contact with his father, who is arrested and transferred to the weapons factory in the camp of Skarzysko (Poland). Aron is arrested and held prisoner in the synagogue of the city. He narrowly escapes the shootings of Raków (Poland) by finding a forced labor position in a factory. He survives thanks to the protection of his paternal uncle, Motek Bulwa.

In November 1944, he was transferred to a Kommando attached to a foundry dependent on the camp of Czestochowa (Poland). He is separated from his uncle during the evacuation to the camp of Buchenwald (Germany) in January 1945. At the camp, Aron survives thanks to a mutual aid network led by the German communist Gustav Schiller, deputy block leader.

The camp was liberated on 11/04/1945, and a thousand Jewish children were cared for by the Work of Aid to Children (OSE), 426 of whom were welcomed in France. The only survivor of his family, he transits through the home of Ecouis (Eure) of the OSE. He settles with the Bulwa family where he learns the trade of tailor, although there is no relationship between them.

Aron marries their daughter Suzanne in 1947 and they have a daughter, Sylvie born in 1962. Aron is naturalized French by the decree of 15/02/1952.

The Shoah Memorial offers its most sincere condolences to his family.