Charles Tenen, 74; Oral Surgeon In Bethesda and Holocaust Survivor

As a 7-year-old in pre-war France, Charles Tenen saw his mother die of tuberculosis. When the Germans occupied France and forced Jews into concentration camps, the young Jewish boy and his family hid in the French countryside.

His aunt was discovered and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where she died. As a schoolboy, Tenen lived for a while in a hotel attic above the rooms of Nazi officers. He bicycled with impunity across German lines, ferrying a castoff parachute for the French Resistance. Others on the same road were shot.

Tenen, 74, a Bethesda oral surgeon who came to the United States at age 16, died of respiratory failure July 27 at Suburban Hospital.

He had a strong work ethic and a well-expressed enjoyment of life, said his daughter, Elise Tenen-Aoki of Irvine, Calif. He was not deeply religious, but when he was invited to participate in filmmaker Steven Spielberg's "Shoah" project, he became one of 50,000 people who recorded personal stories from the Holocaust.

Born in Paris in 1932, Dr. Tenen finished high school in 1948. Even though he didn't speak English, he was fascinated by the United States and persuaded his father to buy him a ticket to New York City on the Queen Mary. Also aboard was entertainer Jack Benny, returning home after the 1948 Olympic Games. When U.S. immigration officials asked the youngster whom he was traveling with, the only name he knew to provide was Benny's.

He lived with his maternal aunt in Boston, where he repeated a year of high school to learn English, and later graduated from Tufts College. He received a doctor of dental surgery degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine and interned at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.

He joined the Air Force to begin paying back for the new life that the United States gave him, and he served as chief of oral surgery at an air base in Japan. After his three-year tour, he attended Boston University's Goldman School of Graduate Dentistry for didactics studies in oral surgery and medicine and became senior chief resident in oral surgery at Philadelphia General Hospital.

Dr. Tenen moved to Bethesda in 1965 and set up a dental practice. He was on staff at Montgomery General and Sibley Memorial hospitals and was chief of oral surgery for many years at Suburban Hospital. He also was on the committee that set up Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville.

Dr. Tenen, who enjoyed sculpting, literature and music, also collected Japanese, French and American art. He enjoyed storytelling and traveling and kept a small pied-à-terre in Paris, which he used when he visited his relatives who remained in Europe.

His wife of 41 years, Carey Bourke Tenen, died in 1996.

In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife of two years, Edith Shoemaker Tenen of Bethesda; a son from his first marriage, Jeffrey Tenen of Miami; a sister, Genevieve Hisch of Rockville; a stepbrother, Alan Tenen of Boston; and four grandchildren.