At the age of 13, Fanny Ben-Ami – himself a refugee from the Nazis – saved 15 children during the Holocaust. Her epic survival story has touched audiences through a children’s book, a feature film, sketches, paintings and countless testimonies. More recently, however, a contractor’s passion project thrust a chapter of Ben-Ami’s saga from literal ruins into the social media spotlight.
Ben-Ami, now 93, is one of the few living beneficiaries of the World War II-era efforts of the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants – the Children’s Aid Society. During the Shoah, this Franco-Jewish humanitarian organization, commonly known as the OSE, rescued Ben-Ami in the French countryside. For several years, the OSE has raised more than 200 refugee children in the towering Château de Chaumont, a grand, seven-story mansion – including Ben-Ami’s younger sisters Erika, now 91, and Georgette, who died in 2015. They never saw her parents again.
The property fell into disrepair after a fire devastated the building in the mid-1980s. It lay in ruins until 2022 when it was sold to a British expatriate named Daniel Preston, a trained chef. Preston filmed a visit to Chaumont in 2021 for his Escape to Rural France YouTube channel, where he also renovates a stone farmhouse. The self-taught builder has since posted more than 100 videos showing the careful removal of Chaumont’s rubble. Trees, bees and bathroom fixtures are perched at dangerous heights.
“I really appreciate what he’s doing,” Ben-Ami said after watching clips of Preston’s videos. “The castle was part of my life. And not just me – 72 children,” she lived there at the time. (During the war, the number of children fluctuated until a newly appointed village chaplain betrayed them to Nazi officials.)
As of 2021, Preston’s channel has racked up more than 34 million views. Replacing floors, laying bricks, and solving structural issues drew more than 850 Patreon subscribers who searched for additional content. Arborists and friends from another channel, The Château Diaries, where Preston starred as a gardener, make cameo appearances. With YouTube ad revenue and “cups of coffee” tips, total monthly income exceeds $8,000.
“I really didn’t expect it to come to this,” said Preston, 33, who also posts on Instagram.
Chaumont is one of 14 castles that the OSE operates as children’s homes. “Most war homes are still in a more or less run-down state, most of them privately owned,” said Dominique Rotermund, archivist at OSE in Paris. “After these homes had to be closed in 1943, the association provided many different hiding places for the children. The number of children saved is around 2,000.”
During the war, Chaumont provided his young transplants with a surrogate family. “We forgot about the war,” said Ben-Ami, now a widowed grandmother of six and great-grandmother of two. “And what we always say: During the day we laughed. And at night we cried.”
Through underground networks, the OSE brought spirited children to Spain, Switzerland and the United States. Many of them, like Ben-Ami, link their survival to the Château de Chaumont. Among them were Ralph Moratz and Wolfgang Grajonca, the last to be placed in foster care after a harrowing trip to New York. The friends eventually lost contact. Moratz was unaware that Grajonca had Americanized his name: he picked a name from a Bronx phone book and became Bill Graham, the renowned promoter of shows for Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix and other rock legends. Graham’s milestones include the 1985 LiveAid concert in Philadelphia and several Amnesty International tours, which raised millions in charitable donations and raised awareness of political injustice.
After Graham died in a helicopter crash in Vallejo, California in 1991 at the age of 60, the media reported on his origins. Moratz, a Hollywood actor-turned-loan officer-turned-computer programmer, rediscovered his lost friend and documented their connection in a blog and subsequent videos for a multicity exhibition entitled Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution. Although Moratz died soon after, his blog is still accessible, as are his archives at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York City.
“Ralph’s enthusiasm to connect with Bill was inspiring because Bill didn’t remember the first ten years of his life, but Ralph did,” said Graham’s son David, 54, from his home near New Hope, Pennsylvania .
He was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and his father’s legacy continues through the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation and an autobiography.
“We look forward to telling his story because there are so many remarkable events that no one knows about,” said David Graham, who is considering making a documentary and other projects with his brother Alex. “He was a master of mass gathering. Peter Coyote called him a cross between Mother Theresa and Al Capone. If you add up all the tickets to his shows, he touched more people with music than died in the Holocaust.”
In 1975, Graham sparked a global phenomenon by sponsoring the first public menorah lighting outside of Israel. “When Chabad asked Bill Graham to build a 22-foot ‘Mama Menorah’ and light it each year in the heart of San Francisco, he supported the whole thing and never looked for credit,” said SF Chabad Rabbi Yosef Langer. “It was only after his death that we gave him the name Bill Graham Menorah. That one menorah spread its light far and inspired thousands more, from Buckingham Palace to the shores of Oahu.”
Like Moratz, who appeared in the blockbuster Independence Day and many other projects, Graham also earned Hollywood roles in Bugsy, The Doors, and Apocalypse Now. Her love of theater can be traced back to Chaumont. Led by resistance fighter Lotte Schwarz, whose room was on the fourth floor, the caregivers asked the children to hide their Jewish identities outside the castle. But at Chaumont, they occupied themselves with everything from sports, foraging for herbs, and other survival techniques to music, literature, and Purim mirrors.
“We thought we were going to stay there forever,” said Ben-Ami, whose room with the older kids was on the third floor.
English television is currently reporting on Preston’s refurbishment for future broadcast. With a building this large, his goal is to remain off-grid to reduce costs. An on-site well provides water and a sponsor provided solar panels, but 40 windows, stairs, wiring and plumbing need to be reinstalled, not to mention a roof and turret. Preston estimates that it could take five years to complete 90% of the work. “I don’t think it will ever happen,” he added.
This isn’t the first time Chaumont has needed reinforcements. The OSE also repaired windows and plumbing, as quoted in “Rescuing Jewish Children While the Nazi Occupation in OSE Children’s Homes 1938-1945.”
A 2022 process photo documenting Preston’s restoration Courtesy of Daniel Preston
At the entrance to Rue de Chaumont, a plaque commemorates its importance. “Preserving authentic sites, structures and artifacts from the Holocaust underscores their historical relevance and is a way of connecting the past with the present,” said Yad Vashem spokesman Simmy Allen.
Years ago, OSE vice director Eric Ghozlan, then director of the Department of Childhood, visited Chaumont to review the purchase for a summer camp “in keeping with the château’s heritage,” said OSE historian Katy Hazan. “The project was not feasible due to the extensive renovation work and the high financial outlay. If the place welcomes children again and brings them benefits, that would indeed mean a lot to us.”
Preston hopes to bring children back, too. Chaumont hosted a summer camp for underprivileged children in the 1950s and 1960s. “With all the support we have online, we could support some kind of academy — for kids to come over the summer and learn skills,” Preston said.
87-year-old French comedian Popeck was four years old when the OSE accompanied him and other young refugees to Chaumont. “I am pleased to learn that the castle is being renovated by a developer who wants to turn it into a summer retreat for children in need,” said Popeck, aka Judka Herpstu, who is remembered by Ben-Ami from Chaumont. He returned to Paris, as did noted psychologist Claire Meljac, 89. (She could not be reached for comment due to health complications.)
Fanny Ben-Ami at home in Holon, Israel earlier this yearWith kind permission of the author
While he’s renovating by day and editing at a nearby Airbnb by night, Preston’s departure is a signature YouTube action, a cheeky high-five with the lens. As the father of two young boys, he recently split from their mother, his partner of 14, which makes the project “deeply personal,” Preston said. “I save the building, but the building saves me too. If one day I don’t make a video, I feel so lost. It’s like keeping a journal, but instead of writing down what you do each day, you go back and see the day in its best light.”
Cinematic footage features stunning aerial and close-up views of the majestic landscape, the ruin itself and the machines that revive it. Dense forests surround the castle in a green cloak, fitting the metaphor of a storybook legend brought back to life. “It struck me as soon as I saw it,” said Preston, who dates the castle to 1886. “It was just magical.”
Ben-Ami felt something similar when she visited the neglected property with other survivors in 1995. “We walked through the gate and it was like a slumber,” she recalls.
In 2019, Yad Vashem recognized Ben-Ami’s war heroism. Escaping German troops in 1943, she led children across the Swiss border on foot, identifying an informant who saved the lives of 150 members of the French underground.
Next, Ben-Ami writes her memoirs. Of course she said, “The lock is in.”
