Child's white smocked dress worn by 2 sisters while living in hiding

Dress worn by 2 sisters, Jacqueline, age 6, and Manuela, age 8, in 1941-42 when the family lived in hiding during the German occupation of France. The dress was made by their maternal grandmother, Sophie Hess, who lived in Hamburg, Germany. She committed suicide during the Holocaust, rather than undergoing forced deportation to the concentration camps.The sisters and their parents, Ellen and Frits Mendels, fled German-occupied Paris in 1942. They were French Jewish citizens who had to abandon their home and assume false identities. They found a safe place to live in hiding in the southern French village of Le Got. A son, Franklin, was born during this time. After the war ended in 1944, the family returned to Paris.