Paula Weinrib-Shayevitz. Collection

Perella Merla alias Paula Weinrib was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, on 2 August 1925 as the daughter of Russian shoemaker Joseph Weinrib (born on 15 May 1897 in Bendzin, Poland) and Sura Fajersztejn (born in Warsaw, Poland, on 13 September 1898). Paula had a younger sister named Fela alias Fanny, who was born in Etterbeek on 18 March 1930. When Nazi-Germany invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940, the Weinrib-Fajersztejn family lived at Boulevard de la Révision 43 in Anderlecht. Paula, her parents and sister, immediately fled to France. They ended up settling at Rue de Gastre 18 in Toulouse. On 26 August 1942 a large raid on the Jewish community took place. Paula’s father Joseph was among those arrested. He was deported from Drancy to Auschwitz-Birkenau via transport 28 on 4 September 1942 and was murdered. During the raid, Paula’s mother Sura was able to hide a friend’s house, while Paula and her sister Fela were away at camp. Sura was then able to contact the nuns at the Couvant de Marie-Réparatrice who helped her go into hiding. Fela was taken in by a local teacher, while Paula found refuge via Maria Baccalerie, a counsellor for the Éclaireurs de France, an interreligious and coeducational French Scouting and Guiding association. Maria brought Paula to the house of her parents François and Jeanne Baccalerie in Toulouse, where Paula would remain for almost two years, posing as the youngest daughter of the family who was living in the countryside at the time. In 1996, Paula’s rescuers would receive the title of Righteous amongst the Nations. Paula, her mother Sura and her sister Fela all survived the war. Upon Liberation, Paula married Jacques Schayevitz (born on 2 November 1926 in Cherbourg, France). The couple settled in France and had three sons. Paula passed away in 2024. Paula’s mother Sura and sister Fela returned to Brussels in 1947. Sura passed away in Israel in 1980. During the Holocaust, Paula did not only lose her father Joseph Weinrib, but also her maternal uncles David and Abraham Fajerstejn (children from her maternal grandfather’s second marriage). Both young men were deported from the SS-Sammellager Mecheln (Dossin barracks) to Auschwitz-Birkenau via transport I on 4 August 1942 and were murdered.

On 4 December 1996, Mrs. Paula Weinrib-Shayevitz kindly donated a reproduction of images P001550 and P001551 to the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin. On 8 January 1997, she added a reproduction of image P001569 to the collection.

Paula Weinrib-Shayevitz, 1996-1997