This was my mother's mother's brooch, purchased for her by my grandfather as an anniversary gift.  When my family fled in 1937 from Germany to France to escape the Nazis, my grandmother hid this piece of jewelry and a few other pieces in a bag that she stuffed underneath the toilet on the train.  She brought it with her to the United States in 1939, and passed away at 101 years old, when it was bequeathed to my mother.