History

During the winter of 1944-45, Allied troops crossed the Rhine River. All the dangerous prisoners had to be “evacuated” to other camps in the German interior. Emma would be sent to Ravensbrück. But there was no train line to there from Gaggenau. A few SS guards forced Emma, along with

About five weeks after Simone’s departure on August 24, 1943, a rural policeman made the climb up to Bergenbach. Emma guessed that he had come for her. Before he could reach the farm, she ran down to meet him to shield her mother from the shock. The man handed her

Emma and Simone faced their first frigid winter alone. The slow-burning coal kept the stove going overnight. In the morning, ice covered the windows and locked them shut. Emma had to use a red-hot iron to get them open. War rationing reduced their diet to a bare minimum; everything had

German forces skirted the Maginot Line and stormed into France in June 1940, retaking the formerly German Alsace with a vengeance. Emma feared that war shortages would severely impact city life. Her sister Eugenie planned to take refuge in the village of Oderen. Emma asked her sullen sister to take

Eugenie grew up to be a lively young lady. She liked to go dancing on Saturday evenings, and Emma had to go along as her chaperone. She sat the entire evening waiting for Eugenie to exhaust all her dancing partners. A young man named Adolphe Arnold often sat at a

Emma was born April  17 1898  in Strasbourg, the capital city of Alsace, to Marie and Andreas Fiorvante Bortot. She had her mother’s light complexion and blue eyes but her Italian father’s jet black hair. The impending birth hardly seemed reason to rejoice. Her unmarried mother Marie lived on the

Emma Arnold, née Bortot, was born on April 17, 1898 in Strasbourg, Alsace. At the tender age of four she had already lost her father. She grew up in poverty on a farm in the mountains. The French and German armies fought ferociously against each other on the battlefields near

The Arnolds made their new family home in the beautiful alpine town of Aix-les-Bains, where as yet no congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses existed. Adolphe’s great devotion to spreading hope about God’s coming Kingdom still burned within him, and he shared in helping many to build faith in Bible promises. When

At the Red Cross camp, prisoners could eat their fill of milk and rice gruel. At first, Adolphe ate as much as two litres (1/2 gallon) at each meal. Slowly his strength returned. But his emotional condition was another matter. Painful questions plagued him. It had been more than six