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On the morning of 11 May 1940, the Handzel family were evacuated to France. They settled in the Mâcon area, together with more than other 25,000 refugees from Luxembourg. After the fall of France, Luxembourg evacuees were returned to their homeland. Marcel Handzel and his parents found new accommodation in Sancé and remained in France. Marcel Handzel went to school there and made new friends, including Raymond Burtin. The Handzels quickly integrated into the village community. As a foreign refugee and a Jew, Marcel Handzel’s father was exploited by the Vichy government as a forced labourer. In August 1942 he was transferred to a “foreigners’ labour camp”, from where he was deported to the East and murdered in Pyskowice near Gleiwitz on 8 December 1943. On 11 November 1942 the “Zone Libre” was occupied by the Germans. Marcel Handzel and Léonie Handzel were picked up in Sancé in July 1944 and deported to Auschwitz extermination camp via Drancy. Three weeks before his 10th birthday, Marcel Handzel was gassed in Auschwitz together with his mother on 4 August 1944. With the exception of three persons, almost all of the family’s Luxembourg relatives were murdered in the Shoah.