Gerda bikales biography channel

Gerda & Norbert Bikales are remarkable Holocaust Survivors, married for 72 years, with an exceptional story to tell.

Gerda and Norbert were born in Berlin, only after their survival and individual immigrations to America they eventually met, in New York.

With war looming, Norbert’s parents put him on a kindertransport to France, he was sent to the OSE, Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants, an organization to help Jewish children.

His parents were expelled from Germany, due to their Polish Jewish roots and went to Lviv, where they were safe until the German occupation of 1941, sadly his parents were sent to Belzec and murdered.

Norbert arrived in France with the German invasion he ran towards the French alps, which were under occupied Italian control, they’d heard that the Italian’s treated the Jews better than the Germans, they stayed there until the Italians switched sides and ran into Switzerland, where they were imprisoned and eventually let go, he made his way to Geneva and even