The younger child of two young Polish Jews, Rachel and Leopold Fallek, young Bettine (born Betty Fallek) enjoyed a "fun and carefree" life until May 1940, when Germany invaded Belgium. So began a series of often worrying adventures for the eight-year-old and her brother Harry, four years her senior. They owed their lives to the brave work of the French-Jewish humanitarian organization Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants, to whom Le Beau's biography, "Hide and Seek" (Mardibooks, 2013; ISBN 978-1-909227-17-0), was dedicated.
