by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

Monique Saigal Escudero’s life story — how she went from a 3-year-old child hiding from Nazi soldiers in a small French village during World War II, to an accomplished author and Pomona College professor — is perhaps even more important today, with fascism on the rise, war raging in the Middle East, and uncertainty all around.

Saigal Escudero, 86, will share her dramatic history in a free and open to the public talk at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 27 at Claremont Heritage’s Ginger Elliott Center, 840 N. Indian Hill Blvd.

“Before I talk about me, I talk about the situation in France at this time, the places, the status of the Jews, discrimination, discriminatory laws,” she said. “I talk about the places where Jews were sent and then I talk about what happened to me.”

Monique Saigal Escudero’s second book, “French Heroines, 1940-1945: Courage, Strength, and Ingenuity,” will be a talking point during a free and open to the public 7 p.m. discussion at Claremont Heritage’s Ginger Elliott Center on Thursday, March 27. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

Born in Paris on October 26, 1938, one of her earliest memories is of her grandmother, Rivk Leiba, saving her from the impending German occupation of France. Her mother had tried to enroll her in a rescue organization, but she was denied because she was Jewish.

Then, on August 16, 1942, “… my grandmother threw me in a train to save me,” Saigal Escudero said.

The train was bound for Dax, some 90 miles south of Bordeaux. “When the train stopped and I got out of the train, there was a young woman who was waiting for a 4-year-old little boy, but he didn’t come,” she said. “And so, she saw me crying and crying and so she asked if she could take me.”

Later that year, her grandmother was murdered at Auschwitz.

A few days after arriving at her new home in the village of Lüe, the woman who had taken her in received a letter informing her that the little girl’s name was Monique Saigal and that she was Jewish. She raised her as a Catholic.

Despite the upheaval, Saigal Escudero said she had a somewhat normal upbringing. At night, she hid from the German officers who often stayed in her new home. At school, in the daylight, she played with her classmates.

“This was a little village of 500 inhabitants, and the house where I lived had, well, no TV of course, no toilet. I had to go outside, and at night they gave me a chamber pot,” she recalled. “And there was no heat. There was just one room with a chimney. And I went to sleep with a hot bottle in the winter. So, it’s a totally different life that children have today.”

Her room was in the attic. Below, two German officers slept.

Mercifully, the war ended in 1945. She had survived, thanks to her grandmother, and to the kindness of the woman who had taken her in.

In 1953, she traveled to the United States with her mother, stepfather and sister. They later became citizens. She returned to France for high school, sailing back to the U.S. in 1956. She worked as a caretaker for time, then enrolled at UCLA to study Spanish and French literature. There she earned a bachelor’s degree in both, and a master’s and a Ph.D. in French literature.

She went on to teach French at UCLA. After taking a position at Pomona College as a Spanish and French professor, she settled in Claremont in 1965. She retired from Pomona in 2011 and is now its Emerita Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures.

She married Riquelme Escudero, a Bolivian native who worked for General Motors, in 1972. They have two daughters, Marilys Escudero and Jennifer Escudero.

Retired Pomona College professor and Holocaust survivor Monique Saigal Escudero pictured at Memorial Park on Wednesday. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

In 2000, Saigal Escudero published “L’écriture: Lien de mère à fille chez Jeanne Hyvrard, Chantal Chawaf, et Annie Ernaux,” (“Writing: Mother-daughter bond in Jeanne Hyvrard, Chantal Chawaf, and Annie Ernaux”). The book explores her effort to find links between herself and her mother.

Her second book, “French Heroines, 1940-1945: Courage, Strength, and Ingenuity,” followed in 2010. It tells the story of 18 women who were part of “Jewish, communist, and other resistance movements,” and of her grandmother, who put her on that train to safety. Her grandmother appears on the book’s cover.

“I put her there because I thought she was resistant too,” Saigal Escudero said. “Because she was able to do something. She was able to throw me in a train not knowing where I was going so that she could be saved and not arrested if they [French police or German officers] were going to come to the house. She was saving me from being arrested, not knowing where I was going.”

She visited Auschwitz in 2015.

“I felt really sad,” she said. “I had goose pimples because I knew my grandmother had died there. So, it was very hard for me. But I’m glad I did it.”

Saigal Escudero said she hopes those who attend her March 27 talk expand their knowledge of the atrocities of the Holocaust.

“We’re all human, whether we are Catholic or Jewish or Buddhist or, you know, that’s nobody’s business what religion we have,” she said. “Religions don’t kill people, people kill people. I like people to know what happened to the little children, 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds. Why kill them? They didn’t do anything.”

Saigal Escudero’s free and open to the public March 27 talk, part of Claremont Heritage’s Muriel F. O’Brien Education Series, begins at 7 p.m. at Ginger Elliott Center, 840 N. Indian Hill Blvd., Claremont. Copies of her book, “French Heroines, 1940-1945: Courage, Strength, and Ingenuity,” will be on sale for $20.

Visit claremontheritage.org/events for more information.