KNOWN FACTS:
Michelle Annette has forgotten her family name, but remembers that her mother's first name was Catherine and that she had a grandmother in Normandy.
During the war she stayed in the OSE Home in Montmorency.
It seems she was was brought from France, probably through Spain and Casablanca in Morroco, to New York in the end of August 1940 or in September 1940..


FEBRUARY 2008

After Michelle Annette gave a presentation at a local Kiiwinais Club, she was intereviewed by a local TV station  http://www.kalb.com/index.php/news/article/wwii-refugee-searches-for-her-identity/3092/  where you can see a video interview with her.

 APRIL 2008

AN IMPORTANT BOOK  "NEVER WAVE GOODBYE"

Philip K. Jason and Iris Posner have written a book called "Never Wave Goodbye" (Publisher : Greenwood Publishing House) telling the story of the around one thousand children brought from Europe to the States during the years 1934 to 1945. The youngest was 14 months old. The oldest 16 years old.

 AN IMPORTANT PHOTO IN ANOTHER BOOK

In the book "Transplanted Children"  Michelle Annette found this photo .

Kathryn Close, Transplanted Children (The United States Committee for the Care of European Children,. 1953),

She recognized herself as the little girl sitting on the arms of the woman to the right. She has a photo taken a little later in America, at her foster parents' house, where she is wearing the same dress.

What Michelle Annette now needs your help is in finding the name of that ship and the exact date of arrival in New York, so that she can access the relevant passenger list.

Michelle Annette's problem of lost identity was not caused by the good people saving her from a terrible fate in Europe, but by her American foster parents.

Therefore we know that finding the right passenger list will at least give her back her original family name.

Is it possible that the information on the passenger list will also include her exact birth date, birth place, home address and names of parents?

Please help her, if you know the name of this ship and the date of arrival. Please!.

JUNE 2008

We are now able to limit the search of when Michelle Annette arrived in the States.

In August 1940 she appears on a photo taken in France on Dr. Ernest Papanek's birthday celebration there.

We now know she was already in the States In the beginning of 1941.

As we see on the photos from New York harbor, the children are dressed in summer clothes.

Based on this, it seems like Michelle Annette arrived in the States in the end of August 1940 or in September 1940.

Questions:

Could it be that the group of children pictured with Dr. Papanek in France, actually left France with him?

Would it be possible to find out on what ship Dr. Ernest Papanek came to the States?

Could it have been Dr. Papanek who took the photos in New York harbor?