By Paul Riemerman
Staff writer

Maryvale Sister Eloise Marie Pulskamp has become the last surviving member of a group of seven nuns from The Sisters of Mary of the Presentation who survived incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp in France during World War II.
When the Germans decided to round up nuns in France who were from the U.S., Pulskamp, 90, was living at the order’s motherhouse in Brittany, France, established in the late 1700s.
Pulskamp became the last survivor of the camp from her order after fellow nun and Maryvale resident Sister Alexandras Turcotte, 93, died Wednesday.
“It’s kind of tough for me to be the last survivor. I hated to see Sister Alexandras die. I had a special connection with her,” Pulskamp said Monday.
The nuns were not starved, and were treated relatively well. “The worst part was the incertitude. Some people would disappear and never come back. We didn’t know what was going to happen to us.”
Pulskamp and her fellow nuns were all Americans finishing their novitiates at the motherhouse in France when the Germans rounded them up. At the time Pulskamp was in her early 20s.
Only the Americans were captured and sent to the camp.
“The Germans made us walk from the motherhouse to the train station,” Pulskamp said.
She arrived in France in 1940, before the war between the U.S. and Germany and before Germany invaded France.

For the complete story, see the July 6, 2010 print edition of the Valley City Times-Record.