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Holocaust survivor, rescuer reunited

Cherie Rosenstein,right and the woman whose passport saved Cherie's life after the Holocaust, Monique Valbot from France reunite at the Dayton International Airport Thursday.

Jim Witmer/Staff Cherie Rosenstein,right and the woman whose passport saved Cherie's life after the Holocaust, Monique Valbot from France reunite at the Dayton International Airport Thursday.

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The moment of reunion: Cherie Rosenstein,right and the woman whose passport saved Cherie's life after the Holocaust, Monique Valbot from France at the Dayton International Airport Thursday. Both Cherie and Monique were five year olds at the time Cherie was hidden in Monique's home in Paris after both of her parents were killed in a concentration camp. The two have not seen each other since Cherie left to come to the U.S. and was adopted here. they lost touch and recently were brought together by chance through a Brooklyn Rabbi who struck up a conversation with Monique who is a tourist in the States.

Jim Witmer/Staff The moment of reunion: Cherie Rosenstein,right and the woman whose passport saved Cherie's life after the Holocaust, Monique Valbot from France at the Dayton International Airport Thursday. Both Cherie and Monique were five year olds at the time Cherie was hidden in Monique's home in Paris after both of her parents were killed in a concentration camp. The two have not seen each other since Cherie left to come to the U.S. and was adopted here. they lost touch and recently were brought together by chance through a Brooklyn Rabbi who struck up a conversation with Monique who is a tourist in the States.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Meredith Moss, Staff Writer Updated 12:59 AM Friday, September 24, 2010

 VANDALIA — A chance encounter between two strangers last week in Brooklyn, N.Y., led to a remarkable reunion for a local woman. 

On vacation in New York last Thursday, Monique Valvot was greeted with “Bon Jour!” by Rabbi Levy Goldberg who overheard her speaking in French.

The two struck up a conversation that eventually led to the story of a little girl who’d been taken in by Valvot’s family at the end of World War II.

 The little girl was Cherie Rosenstein of Trotwood who was reunited on Thursday morning with Valvot, the French woman whose passport helped save her life 63 years ago.

 After Rosenstein’s birth parents were killed in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, the 5-year-old child was taken in by a Parisian family who had a daughter her own age.

The two girls had not seen or had news of one another since the day Valvot’s mother used her daughter’s passport to deliver Cherie to a new family in Cincinnati. 

“I haven’t been sleeping or eating since this all happened,” said an excited but nervous Rosenstein, who arrived at Dayton International Airport holding the doll that she brought to America.  Two crying husbands looked on as the beaming women immediately began asking each other decades’ worth of unanswered questions.

Both had unsuccessfully tried searching for one another through the years. 

It was thanks to Goldberg, a determined stranger, that Rosenstein and Valvot were reunited.

 A few days after the two met he invited Valvot to a Brooklyn cafe for “a surprise,” then handed her his cell phone.

 “This call,” he said, “is for you.”

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