Jeannine Burk was born in Brussels, Belgium, on September 15, 1939, two weeks after Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began. She lived with her parents Isaac and Sara, her brother Max, and her sister Augusta. Isaac was a machinist; the family was poor. In 1942, Isaac contacted the underground resistance movement and arranged for a Christian family to hide Jeannine. He brought her to the family's modest apartment in a Brussels suburb. Not long afterwards, Jeannine's family was betrayed by a neighbor who received a small reward as payment. Isaac was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and never returned. With the help of Christians, Jeannine's brother and sister as well as her mother survived. Jeannine moved to New Orleans in 1971. She and her husband have six children.
This series was funded by the Rita and Harold Divine Foundation, the Siggy Boraks Family, and made possible by the generous contribution of video production services of WDSU-TV in New Orleans.