ELIANE NORMAN MEYER – A SURVIVOR OF HITLER’S INVASION OF FRANCE
Eliane Norman Meyer was born in Lyons, France in 1931. The family moved to Paris but when the Nazis invaded they had to close her father’s shop and take refuge in their summer home in the country. The house was within the unoccupied section of France and was relatively safe for the family. While living there, Eliane experienced little anti-Semitism, but what anti-Semitism was there caused the family to seek refuge in America.
From 1939 to 1942 they could not leave to America, but the family stayed safe. Eliane’s father died in 1940 and her mother moved the family to Portugal to await passage to America. The Germans invaded Portugal, but the family was able to hide and survive.
They arrived in Baltimore in 1942 and tried assimilating in the American lifestyle. Although it took Eliane a year and a half to learn English enough to speak it, she quickly became greatly successful in academics, eventually earning a PhD from Cornell University.
Germans Invading France