{"id":3545,"date":"2025-09-03T13:25:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T11:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bensemann-cup.eu\/?post_type=portfolio&p=3545"},"modified":"2025-09-03T13:32:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T11:32:31","slug":"rene-kaufmann","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/bensemann-cup.eu\/en\/portfolio-item\/rene-kaufmann\/","title":{"rendered":"Ren\u00e9 Kaufmann"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Ren\u00e9 Kaufmann<\/p><\/div>\n

Ren\u00e9 Kaufmann was born in 1937 in Belgium to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father. The Nazis classified their marriage disparagingly as a \u201cmixed marriage,\u201d prompting his parents to flee from Germany first to the Netherlands and later to Belgium in 1934. Ren\u00e9 thus grew up with his two siblings in Belgium, a country to which he remains deeply attached\u2014he still attends school reunions there and speaks both Flemish and French.
\nAfter the Wehrmacht occupied Belgium in 1940, Ren\u00e9\u2019s family was subjected to Nazi violence. Fearing deportation, his father hid in the Ardennes, where he survived but was critically wounded by a physician. Ren\u00e9 and his siblings narrowly escaped deportation themselves, though they lived under constant threat. His mother was abused by the Nazis for refusing to reveal her husband\u2019s hiding place.
\nRen\u00e9 vividly recalls these events, including the abduction of his aunt, who was dragged from her bicycle before his eyes and later deported to Auschwitz\u2014where, like most of the Jewish side of his family, she was murdered. Liberation by American troops in 1944 remains a joyful memory for him; the children were given large jars of candy.
\nIn 1957, at age 20, Ren\u00e9 regained German citizenship and returned to Germany\u2014ironically, he was immediately conscripted into the Bundeswehr, where some of his superiors still harbored Nazi sympathies. For many years, Ren\u00e9 was unable to speak about his family\u2019s history, but more recently, he and his sister Paula Maline have begun sharing their testimony with school groups. Ren\u00e9 now lives with his wife Mechthilde in Moosburg an der Isar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ren\u00e9 Kaufmann was born in 1937 in Belgium to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father. The Nazis classified their marriage disparagingly as a \u201cmixed marriage,\u201d prompting his parents to flee from Germany first to the Netherlands and later to Belgium in 1934. Ren\u00e9 thus grew up with his two siblings in Belgium, a country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"portfolio_entries":[25,24],"class_list":["post-3545","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","hentry","portfolio_entries-english","portfolio_entries-eyewitnesses"],"yoast_head":"\nRen\u00e9 Kaufmann - Bensemann-Cup<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bensemann-cup.eu\/en\/portfolio-item\/rene-kaufmann\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ren\u00e9 Kaufmann - Bensemann-Cup\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ren\u00e9 Kaufmann was born in 1937 in Belgium to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father. The Nazis classified their marriage disparagingly as a \u201cmixed marriage,\u201d prompting his parents to flee from Germany first to the Netherlands and later to Belgium in 1934. 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The Nazis classified their marriage disparagingly as a \u201cmixed marriage,\u201d prompting his parents to flee from Germany first to the Netherlands and later to Belgium in 1934. 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