Joseph Strycharz, born Yossi in Poland, moved to France in the late 1920s, settled in Paris with his wife Alice and became a pastry chef. After joining the Foreign Legion in 1939, he returned to occupied Paris after demobilisation. In 1941 he was arrested during the “green ticket” roundup, interned at Beaune-la-Rolande and later Compiègne, then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered because he was Jewish. Alice and their children survived in hiding.
Nathan Strycharz, originally Nusen, also fled Polish antisemitism and built a grain business in northern France, helping relatives emigrate. After the German invasion, he sheltered family members near Pau and protected his niece Suzanne after her parents’ arrest. He was arrested by French gendarmes in February 1943, sent via Gurs and Drancy, deported to Majdanek, and murdered on 11 March 1943.
