Member or Cooperating Agencies with the Nimes Committee

Part 2: Camps Commission through Committee for Action on Behalf of Refugees (CIMADE) 

Camps Commission-Committee (Commission des Centres de Rassemblement)

(Ryan, 1996, JDC Archives, N.Y.) see also The Nîmes Coordinating Committee

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee obtained French permission to aid in relief activities in France.  Morris Troper, along with Rabbi Rene Hirschler and Marc Jarblum, established the Commission des Centre de Rassemblement (Camps Commission) in 1941. It was partially financed by the French Rothschild family.  The Camps Commission worked with the French Red Cross, the American Friends’ Service (Quakers) and other religious organizations, including the French Minister of Health.  The Camps Commission provided relief to Jews in the newly established French concentration camps.

The Nîmes Coordinating Committee, also known as the Camps Committee, was established in Toulouse, France, in November 1940.  It was created as an umbrella organization of 25 refugee organizations to help coordinate the relief efforts in the French concentration camps in the Southern Zone.  The Camps Committee provided food, medicine, clothing to the beleaguered refugees trapped in the French-run concentration camps.  The conditions in the camps were abysmal, and the mortality rate in some cases reached 10% annually.  The Nîmes Committee was run by a number of American refugee and relief agencies, including the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), headed by Donald Lowrie, the American Friends’ Service Committee (Quakers), the Unitarians, under Dr. Charles J. Joy, the American Red Cross, and others.

The Nîmes Committee worked closely with both the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and HIAS, who helped support the operation.  The Nîmes Committee also worked with a number of local consulates, particularly the Portuguese, Spanish, American, Chinese and Czech.  They obtained valuable documents, including visas and transit papers, which enabled Jewish refugees to leave the camps and eventually escape Southern France.

There were six prominent Jewish organizations that participated in the rescue and relief activities with the Camps Committee.  Six participating groups were Jewish, including the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the Hebrew Immigrant Aid and Sheltering Society (HIAS-HICEM), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE), Federation of Jewish Societies of France (Fédération des Sociétés Juives; FSJ), and the Committee for Aid to Refugees from Germany (Comité d’Aide aux Réfugiés; CAR).  Joseph Weill and Julien Samuel worked with the Camps Commission and arranged for shipments of food and medicine into the French camps.  Herbert Katzki and Joseph J. Schwartz, of the JDC, negotiated with French officials to alleviate the conditions in the camps and gain the release of refugees.  They met with good success.

[American Friends’ Service Committee Archives, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, Philadelphia.  Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 161-164.  Marrus, Michael, R., and Robert O. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. (New York: Basic Books, 1981), pp. 162-163, 260, 261, 267.  Rayski, Adam. The Choice of Jews Under Vichy, Between Submission and Resistance. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press and US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 2005), pp. 107, 341n15.  Ryan, Donna F. The Holocaust and the Jews of Marseille: The Enforcement of Anti-Semitic Policies in Vichy France. (Urbana, IL: The University of Illinois Press, 1996), pp. 90, 149, 152, 163.  Unitarian Service Committee Archives.  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.]

Morris Troper, Camps Commission (Commission des Centres de Rassemblement) (Jewish), American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)

Chief Rabbi Rene Hirschler, founder, Camps Commission (Commission des Centres de Rassemblement)

Chief Rabbi Rene Hirschler set up a refugee aid center for Jews in the autumn of 1940.  On his recommendation, the Jewish Agency created the Camps Commission.

[Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 19, 42, 45-46, 58-59.  Rayski, Adam. The Choice of Jews Under Vichy, Between Submission and Resistance. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press and US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 2005), p. 105, 111.]

Dr. Joseph Weill (Jewish, director of Children’s Aid Rescue Society,  (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE; Camps Commission (Commission des Centres de Rassemblement)

Dr. Joseph Weill was a Jewish physician to the French Jewish Children’s Aid Rescue Society (OSE) and Camps Commission (Commission des Centres de Rassemblement)

He reported on the wartime persecution of Jewish children to American humanitarian organizations.  He set up rescue operations in southern France and organized groups to place children into hiding.  Weill fled France in May 1943.  He worked from Switzerland after leaving France.  He is credited with helping to save more than 4,000 Jewish children.

[Adler, J. The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution. (New York, 1987), pp. 96, 99.  Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 153, 161, 243, 245-246.  Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), pp. 40, 42, 52, 63, 67, 69, 128.  Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 127, 131, 157, 165-166, 186, 188-191, 194, 200, 331n14.  Rayski, Adam. The Choice of Jews Under Vichy, Between Submission and Resistance. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press and US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 2005), pp. 105, 113-114.  Samuels, pp. 33-34, 38, 42, 75-77, 83-84, 93-94, 104, 125, 158.]

Capuchin Monastery

Via Sicilia, Rome, Italy, Maresilles, France, (Gutman, 2007, p. 353), see DELASEM

Father Pirre-Marie Benôit● (Maria Benedetto; Pierre Peteul; 1895-1990)

Father Pierre-Marie Benoît, served as strecher-bearer in World War I. He followed in the footsteps of his uncle and became a priest. and until 1940 lived in the Capuchin monastery in Rome. When war between France and Italy was clearly inevitable, he returned to his homeland and moved into the Capuchin monastery in Marseilles. Deeply troubled by the Jewish laws enacted by the Vichy government, he resolved to devote himself to the protection of Jewish refugees. To do so he used every means at his dispolsal: contacts with passeurs (border guides), with the French underground, and with other religious organizations—Protestant, Greek Orthodox, and Jewish. Father Benoît procured false papers and smuggled refugees into Spain or Switzerland. His reputation as a man who spared no effort to save Jews spread far and wide. The waiting room in his monastery constantly teemed with people, and the printing press in the monastery’s basement printed thousands of false baptismal certificates for distribution to Jews. When, in November 1942, southern France was occupied and the Swiss and Spanish borders became harder to cross, Father Benoît began to organize the transfer of Jews to the Italian occupation zone. He met in Nice with Guido Lospinoso, the Italian commissioner of Jewish affairs, whom Mussolini had sent at the Germans’ insistence. Father Benoît persuaded Lospinoso to refrain from action against the 30,000 Jews who lived in Nice and the vicinity, though that had been the purpose of Lospinos’s trip.

In April 1943, he met with Pope Pius XII and presented a plan to transfer Jews in Nice to North Africa via Italy. This plan was foiled when the Germans occupied northern Italy and the Italian-occupied zone of France. When the Gestapo discovered Father Benoît’s activities, he was forced to move to Rome. Although he himself was now a refugee, he persevered in his rescue efforts with even greater fervor. Father Benoît was elected to theboard of Delasem (Delegazione Assistenza Emigranti Ebrei), the main Jewish welfare organization in Italy and when the Jewish president was arrested, Father Benoît was named the acting president. The organization’s meetings were held at the Capuchin monastery in Rome. Father Benoît contacted the Swiss, Romanian, Hungarian, and Spanish embassies, and obtained false documents that enabled Jews to circulate freely. Father Benoît also extracted numerous ration cards from the police on the pretext that they were meant for non-Jewish refugees. He saved the lives of a great many Jews, who regard him as the man who saved them from the crematoria. Father Benoit never attempted to convert the Jews under his care. Susan Zuccotti who wrote a book about him reports that one suvivor told her that father Benoit told her to "be a good Jewess", another couple said that the priest advised them "You are Jewish and you must remain Jewish". When Rome was liberated in June 1944, the Jewish community held an official synagogue ceremony in honor of Father Benoît and showered him with praise. Years later, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson delivered a moving speech in which he said that Father Benoit’s wonderful actions should inspire the American people in the protection and preservation of the rights of citizens, irrespective of race, color or religion. On April 26, 1966, Yad Vashem recognized Father Pierre-Marie Benoît as Righteous Among the Nations.

Angelo Donati (Jewish)

Angelo Donati was an Italian Jewish banker.  He was a major Jewish rescue activist.  (See Donati in Italian section.)

[Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), pp. 148-150.  Rayski, Adam. The Choice of Jews Under Vichy, Between Submission and Resistance. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press and US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 2005), pp. 194-196, 201, 205.]

Settimio Sorani (Jewish)

Catholic Centre d’Accueil

Catholic Church see Organizations

Cardinal Gerlier●

Abbe Glasberg● Children’s Aid Rescue Society,  (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Central Commission of Jewish Assistance Organizations

(Commission Central des Organizations Juives d-Assistance; CCOJA)

At the end of October 1940, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, under Joseph Schwartz and Herbert Katzki, helped organize an important umbrella organization for the relief of Jews.  It was called the Central Commission of Jewish Assistance Organizations.  The Chief Rabbi of France, Isaie Schwartz, and Rabbi René Hirshler helped organize the Commission.  The Commission worked closely with the French FSJ (Federation of Jewish Societies of France) and the Refugee Aid Committee and the OSE (Children’s Aid Rescue Society).

The CCOJA worked closely with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), under American Donald A. Lowrie, which became an umbrella organization.  It also worked closely with the American Friends’ Service (Quakers) and the Polish Red Cross.

The CCOJA was disbanded in March 1942, unable to achieve many of its goals.  It later morphed into the Nîmes Coordination Committee, also known as the Camps Committee.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 161.  Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 43-47, 58-59, 61.  Marrus, Michael, R., and Robert O. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 157.  Rayski, Adam. The Choice of Jews Under Vichy, Between Submission and Resistance. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press and US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 2005), pp. 59-60, 67, 113, 296, 371n30.]

Joseph Schwartz American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Central Commission of Jewish Assistance Organizations (Commission Central des Organizations Juives d-Assistance; CCOJA) [American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Historical Archives.  Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981).  Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), p. 42. Bauer, 1981, Marrus, 1981; Paxton; Rayski, 2005,)

Herbert Katzki American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Central Commission of Jewish Assistance Organizations (Commission Central des Organizations Juives d-Assistance; CCOJA)

Herbert Katzki was active throughout France in helping Jewish refugees.  He was a rescue advocate who helped organize rescue and relief actions.  Katzki also worked out of the JDC office in Lisbon, Portugal. 

Katzki was also instrumental in trying to implement the Europa Plan.

[Adler, J. The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution. (New York, 1987), pp. 143, 167.  American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives.  Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 41, 43, 61, 156, 158-160, 163, 169-170, 179, 211, 240, 264, 331, 372-374.  Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 26, 41, 44.]

Chief Rabbi Isaïe Schwartz, Central Commission of Jewish Assistance Organizations (Commission Central des Organizations Juives d-Assistance; CCOJA) (Bauer, 1981, Cohen; Marrus, 1981; Paxton; Rayski, 2005,)

Chief Rabbi René Hirschler*, founder, president, Central Commission of Jewish Assistance Organizations (Commission Central des Organizations Juives d-Assistance; CCOJA)

Chief Rabbi Rene Hirschler set up a refugee aid center for Jews in the autumn of 1940.  On his recommendation, the Jewish Agency created the Camps Commission.

[Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 19, 42, 45-46, 58-59.  Rayski, Adam. The Choice of Jews Under Vichy, Between Submission and Resistance. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press and US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 2005), p. 105, 111.]

Donald A. Lowrie Central Commission of Jewish Assistance Organizations (Commission Central des Organizations Juives d-Assistance; CCOJA; Czech Aid, YMCA, head of the Nîmes Committee,  (Bauer, 1981, pp. 161-162, 176, 240-241, 262-265; Fry, 1945; Lowrie, 1963; Ryan, 1996, pp. 148-149, 152, 167, 216; Suback, 2010, pp. 33-34, 39-44, 66-69, 72, 81, 141-144, 157, 177, 183-184, 227-229; Subak, 2010)

Central Jewish Committee of Relief Organizations

Centre Américain de Secours (American Relief Centre, Marseilles)

See Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC)

Children’s Aid Rescue Society (see Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Chinese Consulate, Marsailles, France, Consul Li Yu-Ying

(Diplomatic Archives, Republic of China, 1938-1945, Taiwan; Fry, 1945; Ho autobiography; US Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives; Fry, 1945, pp. 15-17; Marino, 1999, pp. 108, 119; Ryan, 1996)

Li Yu-Ying was the acting Chinese Consul in Marseilles in 1940.  He was also the President of the National Academy there.  Many refugees in Marseilles received a visa stamp from Li Yu-Ying.  In Chinese characters that virtually no one could read, the stamp read, “Under no circumstances is this person to be allowed entrance to China.”  Anxious refugees used the visa stamp as an exit visa.  Frank Bohn, of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), Varian Fry of the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC), and other rescue and relief agencies utilized many of these Chinese visas to help refugees leave France for Spain, Portugal and other parts of Europe.

Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne; AC)

Lyon, France, 1940-1944; Christian rescue network, staunchly anti-Nazi.

Founded by Father Pierre Chaillet● and Jean-Marie Soutou● after the Statut des Juifs was enacted on June 2, 1941; worked with Children’s Aid Rescue Society,  (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)  in Southern France

(Delpard, 1993; Gutman, 1990, 2003; Kieval, 1973; Marrus-Paxton, 1981, pp. 207-209; Moore, 2010, pp. 57, 58, 123, 125, 128, 137; Poznanski, 1993; Rosengart, 1993; Zeitoun, 1996)

Boegner, Pastor●, Pastor Marc Boegner, honorary president Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne; AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944;  president of the Protestant church in France, head of CIMADE, a Protestant relief organization that acted on behalf of Jews incarcerated in concentration camps in France. (Gutman, 2003, pp. 89-90)

Boegner, Pastor Marc File 2698 In May 1941, Pastor Marc Boegner, president of the Protestant church in France, became the first leading French cleric to protest the antisemitic laws of the Vichy regime, explicitly and officially. In 1940, Boegner became head of CIMADE, a Protestant relief organization that acted on behalf of Jews incarcerated in concentration camps in France. In 1942, Boegner and Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier● (q.v.) served as honorary presidents of Amitié Chrétienne, an organization set up to support French Jewry. Boegner supported and encouraged Protestant ministers and many active laypeople to rescue Jews, and his prestige lent great impact to his statements. Thanks to Boegner, Protestant communities sheltered thousands of Jews, primarily in Lyons, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, and the départements of Lozère, Gard, Drôme, and Tarn. Many others were smuggled into Switzerland with the help of Protestant ministers who worked in border areas under Boegner’s influence and inspiration. Starting in the summer of 1941, Boegner maintained personal contact with the Vichy leadership—Marshal Pétain, Prime Minister Pierre Laval and Commissioner of Jewish Affairs Xavier Vallat. In his talks with them, Boegner condemned the regime’s antisemitic policies and sought to have the anti-Jewish decrees rescinded. In a stormy meeting with Laval in the summer of 1942, Boegner vehemently protested the intention to deport Jewish children to camps in the east and the inhumane character of these measures.

On September 6, 1942, during the annual Assemblée du Désert at the Mas Soubeyran, in the département of Gard, Boegner preached to more than sixty parsons and urged them to rescue Jews. This courageous attitude earned him many enemies. In the summer of 1941, the radical antisemitic weekly Au Pilori began to castigate Boegner’s activity and to demand that he be prosecuted. Beecause of his courageous deeds on behalf of the Jews, Marc Boegner risked his life and liberty, like other Protestant ministers, some of whom were arrested and deported. He was personally involved in the rescue of approximately one hundred German Jewish children who had been interned at the Gurs concentration camp in southern France. With the help of others, he helped hide the children when the gendarmerie was about to deport them to Auschwitz. Thus, the children’s lives were saved. In 1940, the Strauss family, French-born Jews, reached the city of Nîmes in the unoccupied zone, where Boegner moved in 1941. In November 1942, after the Germans extended their occupation to the Vichy zone, M. Strauss asked Boegner for his help. The minister received him warmly and sent his family to the city of Montélimar, where he arranged a hiding place for them. In 1943, when the Strausses had to move again, Boegner sent them to the Protestant seminary in Collonges, in the département of Haute-Savoie near the Swiss border, where they found refuge until the liberation in August 1944. Through his resolute opposition to Vichy collaboration with Germany and his support of the rescue of French Jewry—which he advocated fearlessly to those at the head of the regime—Boegner had a profound influence on the French Protestant clergy. As a result, thousands of Jews indirectly owe their survival to him. On November 26, 1987, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor Marc Boegner as Righteous Among the Nations.

Cardinal Gerlier● Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier headed the Catholic Church in the diocese of Lyons. Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne; AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944;  (Gutman, 2003, pp. 89-90)

Gerlier, Cardinal Pierre Marie File 1769 Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier headed the Catholic Church in the diocese of Lyons. He held the distinguished title, Primate of All Gaul, and held the highest rank in the Catholic hierarchy in France. Gerlier, was a supporter of Marshal Pétain and urged his flock to support the leader. However, he expressed moderate but public criticism of the Vichy regime’s anti-Jewish policies. On September 3, 1942, the German command in France reported that, according to Prime Minister Pierre Laval, “The demands that we made regarding the Jewish question have met with unparalleled opposition on the part of the Church, the head of that opposition being Cardinal Gerlier.” Together with Marc Boegner● (q.v.), the head of the Protestant church in France, Gerlier was honorary president of the Amitié Chrétienne, an organization established in Lyons, in 1941, to defend victims of the Vichy regime. On August 30, 1942, the authorities pressured the leaders of the Amitié Chrétienne to hand over 108 Jewish children that they were suspected of illegally removing from Venissieux camp. Gerlier gave his support the rescuers and the children were saved. Cardinal Gerlier also intervened with the Gestapo to obtain the release of Jean-Marie Soutou● (q.v.), an Amitié Chrétienne leader who was arrested in January 1943, imprisoned, and interrogated on suspicion of hiding Jews. On July 15, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier as Righteous Among the Nations.

Father (Abbé) Alexander Glasberg●, Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne; AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944;  Direction de Centres d’Accueil (DCA); Children’s Aid Rescue Society,  (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE) (Gutman, 203, p. 574)

Glasberg, Alexandre (Abbot) Glasberg, Vila (Victor Vermont) Alexandre and Vila Glasberg were brothers born into a Jewish family from Zhitomir (Ukraine), who had converted to Catholicism. They immigrated to France in 1931 and devoted themselves to helping refugees and victims of any discrimination. Ordained as a priest in 1938, Abbot Alexandre Glasberg was named vicar of the Notre-Dame-de-Saint-Alban parish, which was in an underprivileged neighborhood of Lyon. Speaking Yiddish, fond of Jewish-style stuffed carp and a connoisseur of Jewish tradition, he used his relations in the Church to help rescue Jews during the Occupation. Named as a representative of Cardinal Gerlier*, Bishop of Lyon, Primate of the Gauls, on the committee to aid refugees, he went on to create the Main Office for the Shelters (DCA). With the help of a team from the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE) and the Christian Fellowship (Amitié Chrétienne), of which he was a founding member, he obtained the provisional liberation of camp internees and in 1941, took charge of accommodating them in five centers located in La Roche-d’Ajoux (Rhône), Rosans (Hautes-Alpes), and in the Drôme and Cantal regions. His brother, Vila Glasberg, alias Victor Vermont - his Frenchified clandestine name - became director of the reception center at the Château du Bégué in Cazaubon (Gers). He had the support of Monsignor Théas*, the bishop of Montauban, who renewed his relations with his comrades-in-arms from the 1914-1918 War, including Fernand Sentou*, mayor of Cazaubon, and Laurent Talès, the parish priest in Panjas.

Vermont accommodated more than a hundred Jews and non-Jews who had been spirited out of camps in France and were being hunted. Provided with false identity papers from Fernand Sentou, they subsisted by working at the château and neighboring farms. Vermont was assisted in his task by social workers Nina Gourfinkel, Ninon Hait-Weyl, alias d’Harcourt, and Miss Schram, as well as Mrs. d’André, ownerof the estate, who hosted them. On August 26, 1942, Abbot Glasberg organized the escape and dispersal of 108 Jewish children from the Vénissieux camp in Lyon. Sought by the authorities, he went underground and became Elie Corvin, parish priest in the village of Honor-de-Cos (Tarn-et-Garonne), where he continued his rescue efforts. On August 19, 1943, following a denunciation, the police went to arrest Vermont in Cazaubon, mistaking him for his brother Alexandre. He was deported and murdered in the East. Abbot Glasberg survived the war and tirelessly continued his efforts to help refugees and the poor. He was actively involved in the clandestine immigration from Europe and Iraq to the British Mandate Palestine, including the saga of the ship, “Exodus.” Hundreds of Jews were saved thanks to the combined efforts of the Glasberg brothers. On June 17, 2003, Yad Vashem recognized Abbot Alexandre Glasberg, along with his brother Vila Glasberg (Victor Vermont), as Righteous Among the Nations.

Sister Denise Aguadich● (Sister Joséphine), Notre-Dame de Sion, Grenoble, France, Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne; AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944 (Gutman, 2003, p. 33)

Aguadich-Paulin, Denise (Sister Joséphine) File 4246 In 1941-1943, Denise Paulin was a sister in the convent of Notre-Dame de Sion in Grenoble, where she was known as Sister Joséphine. She also belonged to an underground group (the Amitié Crétienne) in which Father Pierre Chaillet● (q.v.) and Germaine Ribière (q.v.) were members, and was active in rescuing scores of Jewish children and adults. In July 1943, the gendarmerie discovered her underground activities and she was forced to flee Grenoble. Relocating to Paris, she made herself available to the OSE (Organisation de Secours aux Enfants). Many testimonies illustrate the efforts, contacts, courage, resourcefulness, and purposefulness with which Paulin saved Jewish children by arranging safe refuge, shelter, forged identity cards, rescue from detention, and escape into Switzerland. Paulin also provided ration cards for Jewish children and adults fleeing the gendarmerie and the Gestapo. The Elbaz family is an example of Paulin’s efforts. After the mother was deported in 1942, Paulin, working on behalf of the OSE, arrived at the Elbaz home, where five members of the family—the father, the sons Léon and Jacques, and the daughters Jacqueline and Mazeltob—resided. She implored the father to let her hide the boys in a farmer’s house in a village in the département of Sarthe, but M. Elbaz only agreed after entreaties from his daughter Mazeltob. On another mission for the OSE, Paulin arranged the transportation by train of forty children to Le Mans, capital of the département of Sarthe.

The children, organized into groups of ten, were taken in peasants’ wagons to a large farm, and dispersed by the local peasants in groups of two or three. The entire operation took place in the dead of night and all the children were handed over to their adoptive families in the villages. The Elbaz boys, who remember the journey well, recounted later that after they had been out of touch with their father for six months—sincecorrespondence had become dangerous—their sister Mazeltob came to visit them. When Mazeltob returned, Elbaz and his daughters were arrested, probably due to an informer. After the war, Paulin visited the villages to inquire about the welfare of her charges. She continued to assist the Elbaz family. She enrolled the sons in vocational studies at the ORT school and placed the daughter Jacqueline, who had returned from the camps in poor physical condition, with her own parents in Chapareillan for six months of convalescence. Benzion Anavi, a Bulgarian-born Jew, asked Paulin, who was usually successful in obtaining the release of internees, to help him free a woman friend from a detention camp. Paulin was not able to effect her release but sent her food parcels. Paulin remained in touch with Anavi after he joined the underground in efforts to rescue Jews by smuggling them into Switzerland. When Anavi was arrested and sent to Gurs, Paulin sent him food parcels as was her custom, and after some effort succeeded in getting him released. Paulin’s parents (q.v.) cooperated in her rescue work and, when necessary, allowed her to hide Jews in their home. One of these wards was Hélène Brenner, who remembers meeting another Jewish couple in the home of Paulin’s parents. Paulin married a Jew, M. Aguadich, and remained on close terms with Mazeltob Elbaz-Wajsbrot after the war. On May 16, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Denise Aguadich-Paulin as Righteous Among the Nations.

Bonhoure, Roger●, was the town clerk in Vic-sur-Cère (Cantal). Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne; AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944;

Bonhoure, Roger Roger Bonhoure, who was 21 years old in 1942, was the town clerk in Vic-sur-Cère (Cantal). The village had a children’s home that had been opened on the initiative of the Abbot Alexandre Glasberg*. It was supported jointly by the Christian Fellowship (Amitié Chrétienne) and the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE). The institution, which was run by Dr. Malkin and his wife, Henriette, both Jews from Lorraine, took in young Jewish adolescents, most of whom had been pulled out of camps in southern France thanks to Abbot Glasberg. The Malkins were friendly with Roger Bonhoure, who was hostile to the German occupation. Hélène Turner-Lentschener, a Jewish refugee from Belgium, had been interned at the Gurs camp, and then at Rivesaltes with her parents. She was then sent to Vic-sur-Cère camp, while her parents were deported and murdered in the death camps. After the tragic arrests in the summer of 1942, Roger Bonhoure agreed to provide a “real” false identity card for Hélène, for purely humanitarian reasons. Thanks to this precious document, she was able to settle in Saint-Etienne and obtain work. Next, Roger made similar identity papers for other boarders in Vic-sur-Cère, despite the great risk since the mayor was a collaborator and the chief of the regional collaborationist militia lived in the town. In December 1942, Abbot Glasberg told the Malkins they should give up running the institution because their Jewish identity had become known. Roger then provided the Malkins, along with Henriette’s sister, Jeanne Frenkel, the identity papers they would need to go underground.

Jeanne Frenkel, a social worker at the institution, continued to work unstintingly in the ranks of the Garel network, looking for hiding places and foster families and accompanying children from the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE) to safe havens. Roger distributed a large number of “real” false identity cards, of which their recipients did not usually know the origin. In thisway he helped to rescue many Jews from danger. On August 1, 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Roger Bonhoure as Righteous Among the Nations.

Roger Braun●, Roger Braun was a Jesuit priest. During the war, he devoted himself to the saving of persecuted Jews. Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne; AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944; (Gutman, 2003, p. 467)

Braun, Father Roger File 762 Roger Braun was a Jesuit priest. During the war, he devoted himself to the saving of persecuted Jews without any attempt to proselytize them. On the contrary, he attempted to persuade Jews to adhere to their ancestral faith. After the war, Rabbi Henri Schilli, who became the director of the rabbinical seminary in Paris in the 1950s, told how Father Braun’s principle of solidarity with the Jews dominated the priest’s actions during the entire occupation. Thus, dressed in his Jesuit robes, he even participated in services at the Toulouse synagogue. In 1942, Father Braun was appointed chaplain of the detention camps of Gurs and Rivesaltes in southern France. Henri Schili was then the rabbi of those two camps, and he witnessed the actions of the Jesuit. To help the Jewish detainees he worked hand in hand with most of the Jewish relief organizations, with rabbis, and with other Jewish leaders. He also cooperated with Amitié Chrétienne, an organization founded in Lyons to assist persecuted Jews. In November of that year, when the Germans occupied southern France, Roger Braun opened a branch of Amitié Chrétienne in Limoges and maintained contact with the Organisation de Secours aux Enfants, which took care of Jewish children. He did so in cooperation with Protestant organizations and Jewish underground movements. When the persecution of Jews reached its peak in 1942-1943, he was in constant contact with the administration of the French rabbinate and with the rabbis in the large cities of the southern zone.

Thanks to his networks, he was able to help Jewish prisoners and even free some of them. Thus, in September 1942, Father Braun persuaded the commander of the Rivesaltes camp not to deport thirty Jewish children, but rather to entrust them to Secours Suisse. He also participated in the transfer of Jewish children to Switzerland and Spain and had Jews hidden in Catholic establishments. He gave refuge to young Jews in asecondary school run by the Jesuits in Toulouse, and thanks to him, the students of a rabbinical seminary took refuge in a hiding place in a church in Limoges. He obtained ration cards and forged documents for those whom he protected and continued to frequent Jews openly. When the Germans arrested Rabbi Abraham Deutsch and incarcerated him in Limoges, Father Braun visited him and brought books and tefillin. Despite the constant danger, Father Braun devoted all his efforts during the occupation period to the rescue of Jews. When the Gestapo, suspecting that he was assisting Jews, had him followed, he went underground. After the war, he continued his activities on behalf of Jews and founded Rencontres Judéo-Chrétiennes, a French movement that promoted Christian-Jewish encounters. On July 13, 1972, Yad Vashem recognized Father Roger Braun as Righteous Among the Nations.

Father Pierre Chaillet●, Bishop Delay of Marseilles, Lyons.  Mobilized Catholics during the occupation to help camp inmates in southern France. Fponder Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne; AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944; (Gutman, 2003, pp. 467, 506)

Chaillet, Father Pierre File 1770 Pierre Chaillet, a Jesuit priest in Lyons, mobilized Catholics during the occupation to help camp inmates in southern France. He commented on the inactivity of the Catholic Church: “It pains me to note that everything being done to help prisoners and urban refugees is carried out by Protestant and Jewish organizations. ” In 1941, Chaillet inaugurated an underground journal called Les Cahiers du Témoignage Chrétien. The first edition, entitled “France, Beware, Lest You Lose Your Soul, ” had a print run of 5,000 copies. In 1942, four additional editions appeared, each twenty pages long, as did a second printing of the first edition, with 30,000 copies distributed. Les Cahiers was the only underground journal in France that pointedly rejected antisemitism and countered the authorities’ antisemitic propaganda with its own propaganda. This effort, orchestrated by Chaillet, gathered momentum across France and continued until liberation. In cooperation with Protestant minister Roland de Pury (q.v.) and others, Chaillet helped found the rescue organization Amitié Chrétienne. He also provided Jewish refugees with forged papers, helped smuggle Jews into Switzerland, and in late August 1942, when a group of activists from Amitié Chrétienne came to the aid of Jewish rescue organizations, he took part in the rescue of 108 Jewish children from the Venissieux transit camp near Lyons. Chaillet was ordered, by the Vichy Interior Ministry, to divulge to Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier● the addresses of the Jewish children’s hiding places.

When Chaillet refused, the government banished him for two months to a psychiatric hospital in Privas, a town south of Lyons. In February 1943, the Gestapo raided the offices of Amitié Chrétienne and arrested all the members there, including Chaillet. He was made to stand facing a wall; while he waited to be interrogated, he swallowed the incriminating documents that were in his pocket. When he finished, Chailletbegan to shout, protesting the injustice being done to “a poor village priest, a refugee from the north. ” He was released, but only after receiving a brutal beating. Undeterred, Chaillet continued to campaign for the rescue of Jews in his underground newspaper. Father Chaillet was one of the intellectual leaders of the French Catholic community. In contrast to Cardinal Suhard, head of the Church in Paris, who declared that illegal actions on behalf of Jews were “grave violation[s] of the precepts of personal and collective ethics, ” Chaillet argued that “saving an innocent person is not a rebellious act but rather compliance with the oral, unwritten precepts of law and justice. ” On July 15, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Father Pierre Chaillet as Righteous Among the Nations.

Marie Antoietten Cipan●, (Gutman, 2003, p. 153)

Paul Cipan●

Cipan, Marie-Antoinette Cipan, Paul File 6981 On the afternoon of July 16, 1942 — the day of the great roundup of Jews in Paris —thirty-two-year-old Szajnla (Sonia) Wajsbrot, a Jew from Poland, was warned that she must leave her home. Wajsbrot crossed the demarcation line and traveled to Limoges, where a social worker named Germaine Ribière● (q.v.) drove her to Brive-la-Gaillarde (département of Corrèze). There, through the mediation of Mme Granet, the sister of Edmond Michelet● (q.v.), Wajsbrot was referred to Paul and Antoinette Cipan. The Cipans, a childless couple who lived over their small general store in Brive-la-Gaillarde, wanted to shelter a Jewish child, but when none was found, they accepted Wajsbrot willingly. She lived with them for nearly two years (from then until the liberation). Introduced as a distant relative from the north, she sewed all their clothes and formed a close and warm relationship with them. Before she left to join her relatives, the Cipans gave her a parting meal, after which they escorted her to the train station. On March 10, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Paul and Marie-Antoinette Cipan as Righteous Among the Nations.

Count Henri D’André● and his wife, Countess Simone●, Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne; AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944

D’André, Henri D’André, Simone Count Henri D’André and his wife, Countess Simone, were the owners of the Château du Bégué in Cazaubon (Gers). In 1942, they put their mansion at the disposal of the Christian Fellowship (Amitié Chrétienne) organization to be used as a reception center for Jewish refugees. The center, under the auspices of Abbot Alexandre Glasberg*, was managed by his brother, Vila Glasberg*, known by his alias Victor Vermont. The countess served as hostess to the refugees and there was no charge levied by the couple for the use of the mansion. The village residents knew that the inhabitants were Jewish and nicknamed them, “The D’Andrés’ refugees”. The owners lived in a villa on the grounds of the estate, close to the mansion. They concealed in their villa the Jewish painter and sculptor Joseph Constantinovsky known as Joseph Constant, and his artist wife, Judith known as Ida. They allowed the couple to focus on their art and tended to their daily needs. More than a hundred Jews who had been spirited out of camps in France were accommodated at the Château du Bégué. Provided with false identity papers from Fernand Sentou*, mayor of Cazaubon, they subsisted by working at the château and neighboring farms. On August 19, 1943, following a denunciation, the Gestapo arrived at the Château du Bégué and arrested Victor Vermont, mistaking him for his brother Alexandre. He was deported and murdered. Despite the risk involved, the Count and Countess D’André continued to shelter the Constantinovsky couple in their villa until the Liberation.

On November 11, 2006, Yad Vashem recognized Henri and Simone D’André as Righteous Among the Nations.

De Cellery d’Allens, Françoise, Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944. see Baron Olivier de Pierrebourg (Gutman, 2003)

De Cellery d’Allens, Françoise File 2267a. In 1941, eighteen-year-old Françoise de Cellery married Baron Olivier de Pierrebourg● (q.v.). From then, until her husband was arrested in 1943, de Cellery helped him in all his relief and rescue operations. In 1941, in Lyons (southern zone), the Baron was involved in setting up the Amitié Chrétienne organization, which provided help for persecuted Jews, camouflaged as relief for refugees from Alsace and northern France. Many of the Jewish children whom de Cellery and de Pierrebourg saved were sent to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a Protestant town in the département of Haute-Loire which was a safe haven for Jews. The Baron and his wife transformed their small apartment into a way station for refugees from many countries, Jews and non-Jews, who slept on mattresses spread on the floor. The couple arranged escape routes to Switzerland, smuggled refugees and Resistance fighters out of France, obtained forged papers, found hiding places, and distributed Resistance newspapers. In September 1942, de Cellery hid three members of the Silverman family, Austrian Jewish refugees who had unsuccessfully tried to run the border by crossing Lake Geneva. Ten days later, the Silvermans tried again, this time accompanied by the Baron himself, who smuggled them into Switzerland across the Alps, east of Chamonix. From 1941 on, the de Pierrebourgs’ principal occupation, which required great courage, was frequently dangerous underground activity on behalf of fugitives.

After the Germans entered the unoccupied zone in November 1942, de Cellery and her husband had to stop their rescue activity and hide from the authorities. In May 1943, the Germans arrested the Baron on his way to join the Free French forces in Algeria. Miraculously he survived. After the war, de Cellery and her husband learned that when the Baron’s arrest became public knowledge, prayers were offered on his behalf in the synagogue in Lyons. On May 3, 1982, Yad Vashem recognizedFrançoise de Cellery d’Allens as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor Roland de Pury●, Roland de Pury collaborated with Father Pierre Chaillet (q.v.), head of the rescue organization Amitié Chrétienne, to facilitate full cooperation among members of these two Christian communities in rescuing Jews. Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944.

De Pury, Pastor Roland De Pury, Jacqueline File 1066 As early as July 14, 1940, in the Protestant church on Lanterne Street, in the heart of Lyons, Pastor Roland de Pury preached against the “base complacency” of the inhabitants of unoccupied France: “If France betrays the hope that the persecuted are placing in her, she will no longer be France.” Roland and Jacqueline de Pury were Swiss citizens who exhibited stunning audacity in leading a spiritual and humanitarian rebellion of Protestants in Lyons. Wave after wave of refugees, mainly Jews, lived with them and their eight children in the Croix-Rousse quarter. Roland de Pury collaborated with Father Pierre Chaillet● (q.v.), head of the rescue organization Amitié Chrétienne, to facilitate full cooperation among members of these two Christian communities in rescuing Jews. Pury was young, charismatic, and resourceful. He was an inspiring orator who had great influence over his congregants, who hid Jews who had previously found shelter in the Pury home. Scores of clergymen throughout the Lyons area took him for a model. Late on the night of January 27, 1943, Amitié Chrétienne activists held an emergency meeting at his house. That morning, the Gestapo had arrested Father Chaillet and Jean-Marie Soutou in the organization office. It happened that many Jews were expected to visit the office the following day, some for material assistance and others for forged papers. They had to find a way to prevent them from entering the office, where the Gestapo had laid a trap for them.

A solution was found. Germaine Ribière● (q.v.), a volunteer with Amitié Chrétienne, volunteered to dress up as a cleaning woman. She procured a pail and some rags, and spent the day scrubbing the stairwell of the building in which Amitié Chrétienne was located. Whenever Jews approached the building, Ribière swiftly shooed them away. This strategy was successful and not a single Jew fell into the Gestapo trap. On Sunday, May 13, 1943, as Pastor de Pury, dressed in his pastor’s robe, prepared to lead mass for the large congregation, two men in civilian attire burst in. They seized Pury, forced him into a car, and sped away. His wife Jacqueline, Cardinal Gerlier● (q.v.), and the chairman of the Protestant Federation, Pastor Marc Boegner● (q.v.), attempted vainly to persuade the Gestapo to release him. On October 28, 1943, in the town of Bregenz, Austria, Pastor de Pury was turned over to local authorities and exchanged for German spies who had been arrested in Switzerland. After the liberation, he returned to Lyons. On May 30, 1976, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor Roland and Jacqueline de Pury as Righteous Among the Nations.

Alexandre● and Vila Glasberg●, Alexandre and Vila Glasberg were brothers born into a Jewish family from Zhitomir (Ukraine), who had converted to Catholicism. They immigrated to France in 1931 and devoted themselves to helping refugees and victims of any discrimination. Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944.

Glasberg, Alexandre (Abbot) Glasberg, Vila (Victor Vermont) Alexandre and Vila Glasberg were brothers born into a Jewish family from Zhitomir (Ukraine), who had converted to Catholicism. They immigrated to France in 1931 and devoted themselves to helping refugees and victims of any discrimination. Ordained as a priest in 1938, Abbot Alexandre Glasberg was named vicar of the Notre-Dame-de-Saint-Alban parish, which was in an underprivileged neighborhood of Lyon. Speaking Yiddish, fond of Jewish-style stuffed carp and a connoisseur of Jewish tradition, he used his relations in the Church to help rescue Jews during the Occupation. Named as a representative of Cardinal Gerlier*, Bishop of Lyon, Primate of the Gauls, on the committee to aid refugees, he went on to create the Main Office for the Shelters (DCA). With the help of a team from the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE) and the Christian Fellowship (Amitié Chrétienne), of which he was a founding member, he obtained the provisional liberation of camp internees and in 1941, took charge of accommodating them in five centers located in La Roche-d’Ajoux (Rhône), Rosans (Hautes-Alpes), and in the Drôme and Cantal regions. His brother, Vila Glasberg, alias Victor Vermont - his Frenchified clandestine name - became director of the reception center at the Château du Bégué in Cazaubon (Gers). He had the support of Monsignor Théas*, the bishop of Montauban, who renewed his relations with his comrades-in-arms from the 1914-1918 War, including Fernand Sentou*, mayor of Cazaubon, and Laurent Talès, the parish priest in Panjas.

Vermont accommodated more than a hundred Jews and non-Jews who had been spirited out of camps in France and were being hunted. Provided with false identity papers from Fernand Sentou, they subsisted by working at the château and neighboring farms. Vermont was assisted in his task by social workers Nina Gourfinkel, Ninon Hait-Weyl, alias d’Harcourt, and Miss Schram, as well as Mrs. d’André, ownerof the estate, who hosted them. On August 26, 1942, Abbot Glasberg organized the escape and dispersal of 108 Jewish children from the Vénissieux camp in Lyon. Sought by the authorities, he went underground and became Elie Corvin, parish priest in the village of Honor-de-Cos (Tarn-et-Garonne), where he continued his rescue efforts. On August 19, 1943, following a denunciation, the police went to arrest Vermont in Cazaubon, mistaking him for his brother Alexandre. He was deported and murdered in the East. Abbot Glasberg survived the war and tirelessly continued his efforts to help refugees and the poor. He was actively involved in the clandestine immigration from Europe and Iraq to the British Mandate Palestine, including the saga of the ship, “Exodus.” Hundreds of Jews were saved thanks to the combined efforts of the Glasberg brothers. On June 17, 2003, Yad Vashem recognized Abbot Alexandre Glasberg, along with his brother Vila Glasberg (Victor Vermont), as Righteous Among the Nations.

Isoard, Armand●

Isoard, Simone●

Isoard, Joseph●

Isoard, Julie●,

Armand and Simone Isoard were farmers, and lived with their four young children in Auzet (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944.

Armand and Simone Isoard were farmers, and lived with their four young children in Auzet (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). One day in 1943, Marcel Zabronski, in the guise of an itinerant salesman knocked on their door with some fabric for sale. During their exchange, Zabronski let drop that he was a Jew in search of a hiding place for himself, his wife and daughter. Armand and Simone decided to give him shelter and Armand’s brother, Joseph and his schoolteacher wife, Julie, hosted Mrs. Zabronski and daughter Liliane. When Polish-born Marcel and Josette Zabronski, and Liliane, who was born in Lyon, in 1942, arrived in the village of Auzet, situated at an elevation of 1500 m. there were 12 other Jewish children in a youth hostel in Auzet, under the auspices of the Christian Fellowship organization (Amitié Chrétienne). The hostel was being used as a children’s day care center by the organization and employed two women, Simone Chaumet* and Germaine (Jamy) Bisserier*. There was no direct connection between the center and the Zabronskis, but the Isoards supplied the children at the hostel with farms products. Some of the men in the village were active in the French resistance, among them the Isoard brothers. While the villagers knew that the Isoards were hiding Jews, the danger of betrayal was ever-present. In summer 1944, news reached the village that the Germans were in the area close to the village.

The Zabronskis went to hide outside the village, while Liliane (later Blum) was left in the caring hands of 17-year-old Edmee, the daughter of Joseph and Julie. After the war, the Zaronskis continued to stay in touch with their rescuers. The Isoards refused to accept any recognition for their actions during the war, claiming that their behavior was only natural. On April 22, 2007, Yad vashem recognized Armand and Simone Isoard, as well as Joseph and Julie Isoard, as Righteous Among the nations.

Suzanne Jacquet devoted most of her time to service in the Marseilles branch of Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), France, 1940-1944.

Vincent-Jacquet, Suzanne Fiel 3338 Shortly after finishing her secondary studies in 1941, Suzanne Jacquet devoted most of her time to service in the Marseilles branch of Amitié Chrétienne. That association was founded a short time earlier in Lyons and provided help to the victims of the Vichy regime. Her leader in Marseilles, Gaston Vincent● (q.v.) opened the Vert Plan shelter in Mazargues (Bouches du Rhône). This residence hid Jewish children from the detention camps in the southern zone. On November 11, 1942, a German general requisitioned Vert Plan. The children were hastily sent to Vic sur Cère (Cantal). Suzanne Jacquet took responsibility for an improvised shelter in a building bearing the sign, “Touring Hôtel,” where the children were placed, in association with the OSE. That Jewish charity regarded the shelter as a transitory place of refuge from which every child was later taken either to a host family or spirited across the Swiss border. At the Touring Hôtel, Suzanne Jacquet also forged identification papers and taught her “art” to the oldest of her pupils. Hélène Turner, eighteen years old, had been saved from the Rivesaltes camp and placed in Vic sur Cère, was one of these. Ryna Himmelfarb, who narrowly escaped arrest in a roundup in Périgeux, arrived at the Touring Hôtel only in 1944. She was seventeen. After the war, Suzanne married Michel, the son of Gaston Vincent, who had escorted children to safety from Vert Plan in November 1942. On January 28, 1986, Yad Vashem recognized Suzanne Vincent-Jacquet as Righteous Among the Nations.

Louis Lauria was a government official who lived in Lyons. Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944.

Lauria, Louis Vincent File 4198 Louis Lauria was a government official who lived in Lyons. He held several posts in the SSE (Service Social des Etrangers, the social-service agency for foreigners) and worked as a volunteer for Amitié Chrétienne (“Christian Friendship”), which is credited with saving many Jewish lives. Both in his official capacity and in his volunteer work, Lauria visited refugee camps in France and provided humanitarian aid. In January 1942, Lauria was appointed inspector of the SSE in Lyons and worked closely with the local Jewish community. In August 1942, the Vichy authorities were about to launch the mass arrest of Jews in Lyon. Louis Lauria had advance knowledge and took part in a vast clandestine operation designed to warn the Jews concerned. Many of them had time to flee, and their lives were saved. After the war René Nodot● (q.v.), an official in Lauria’s welfare bureau and an activist in the Amitié Chrétienne, testified that in late August 1942, Lauria participated in an operation that rescued dozens of Jewish children from the Vénissieux camp near Lyons. In 1943, the French police arrested a young Jew, Jacques Yanni, who was trying to avoid forced labor service. Yanni was taken to a labor camp in Brest, pending deportation to the east. Upon hearing of Yanni’s arrest, Lauria used forged documents and reports to obtain a job for Yanni in a factory in Lyons. Thus, he could leave the camp in Brest. This action, like many others, was extremely hazardous because, had it been discovered, Lauria might have been deported as well.

On April 18, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Louis Vincent Lauria as Righteous Among the Nations.

Louis Paulin●, (Gutman, 2003)

Paulin, Joséphine●, Louis Paulin and his wife, Joséphine, lived in Chapareillan, a village in the département of Isère.

Paulin, Louis Paulin, Joséphine File 4246a Louis Paulin and his wife, Joséphine, lived in Chapareillan, a village in the département of Isère. Two of their three children were still living at home when the war broke out. Their elder daughter Denise, a nun in the Order of Notre Dame de Sion in Grenoble, was a social worker and nurse. During the occupation, she used her professional credentials in rescue activities and hid Jewish children in the convent (see Aguadisch). In several cases, she sent Jews to her parents, who hid them in their home in the village. The Wulfowiczes, a Jewish couple with a young daughter, had fled from Belgium to southern France in May 1940. They were among the fortunate few who found a safe haven with the Paulins, after a dramatic escape from the Rivesaltes concentration camp and much hardship. The refugees met Denise who sent them to her parents’ house. They reached Chapareillan in late 1942 and remained there until the liberation. Throughout their stay with the Paulins, the Wulfowiczes were treated as members of the family. Louis Wulfowicz worked in the garden and his wife helped with the domestic chores. To assure that young Liliane Wulfowicz would have playmates, Joséphine Paulin looked after children her age. The Paulins never sought remuneration for the hospitality and food they provided. Their religious faith prompted them to open their home to the persecuted

Raymond Pichon● became commander of the police station in Nerac (Lot et Garonne). Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944. (Gutman, 2003, p. 441)

Pichon, Raymond File 7737 In July 1941, Raymond Pichon became commander of the police station in Nerac (Lot et Garonne). Pichon contacted the local Resistance, through which he met Roger Cerf, a Jewish refugee from Thionville (Moselle). Many members of Cerf’s family lived in Nerac and neighboring localities, and, in the spring of 1942, Roger took part in establishing an institution for Jewish refugees who had been removed from quarantine camps, a project conceived by the Amitiè Chrètienne organization at the initiative of Father Alexandre Glasberg●. The institution was opened in Cazaubon (Gers) and was run in conjunction with the UGIF in Toulouse. In August 1942, when deportations of Jews from quarantine camps to Drancy and the east began, the occupants of Cazaubon had to be equipped with forged identity cards. Cerf contacted Pichon, who issued as many such documents as were requested. In November 1942, after the southern zone was occupied, Cerf decided to conceal his relatives, too. Again, Pichon issued forged documents, this time for fourteen members of the Cerf, Lévy, and Nathan families, all of who were refugees from Moselle. In 1943, when Pichon came under suspicion of having thwarted the regime’s regulations, he was transferred from his position in Nerac to Aix les Bains (Savoie), where he continued to assist resistance organizations. On November 10, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Raymond Pichon as Righteous Among the Nations.

Baron Olivier de Pierrbourg● (layperson), Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944 see Françoise de Cellery d’Allens

De Pierrebourg, Baron Olivier File 2267 In 1941, Baron Olivier de Pierrebourg, with the assistance of his wife, Françoise de Cellery d’Allens● (q.v.), established L’Amitié Chrétienne, a refugee relief association in Lyons, in the unoccupied zone. Under the cover of this organization, de Pierrebourg helped many persecuted people escape the Germans, including Jewish refugees and members of the underground. He also provided forged papers, prepared escape routes, gathered intelligence, created a distribution system for underground newspapers and raised funds to have the newspapers printed. On August 21, 1942, Baron de Pierrebourg forwarded an urgent warning to his friends, the Silvermans, who were Austrian Jewish refugees, that they faced deportation to Germany. They fled their home that day, without taking anything with them, and spent several days hiding with a friend. On September 12, the Baron furnished them with forged identification papers and escorted them in the direction of Lake Geneva, where they planned to cross into Switzerland on a French fishing boat that he had procured. The attempted escape failed, and the Silvermans returned to the Baron’s home in Lyons, where, at great risk to all, they hid in one room for ten days, sleeping on mattresses. On September 23, they escaped by train to a location near the town of Chamonix, travelling with other refugees who did not know each other. During the trip, German police and French gendarmes boarded the train, searched for potential escapees, and arrested several people.

Had the Silvermans been arrested, too, there was a risk that the baron might have been implicated. In May 1943, Baron de Pierrebourg set out for Algiers via Spain, but was arrested by the Germans and incarcerated in a camp at Compiègne. He was deported to the east but on September 18, he jumped from the train, which was already in Germany, and he returned safely to France. On May 3, 1982, Yad Vashem recognized Baron Olivier de Pierrebourgas Righteous Among the Nations.

Pierrette Poirier●, Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944. (Gutman, 2003, pp.448-449)

Poirier, Pierrette File 1484e Pierrette Poirier, known by the nom de guerre of Cathie, lived in Poitiers (Vienne). Poirier followed the dictates of her heart, which instructed her to help people in distress. Poirier assisted Rabbi Elie Bloch and Father Jean Fleury● (q.v.), who worked resolutely and courageously to liberate Jewish children and young people from the camp in Poitiers. Poirier slipped across the demarcation line to bring two children to the unoccupied zone whom Father Fleury had rescued from the camp. She also issued forged papers that she distributed to Jews who wanted to go into hiding. As the summer of 1942 approached, she discovered that the regime suspected her and sought her arrest. She fled to Châteauroux, a city on the other side of the demarcation line. Here Poirier worked for the OSE, principally in its underground division, which placed Jewish children with non-Jewish families and institutions. According to the testimony of Georges Garel, who headed this division, Poirier looked after approximately one hundred Jewish children, arranging hiding places, visiting each child once a month, reimbursing host families and institutions for the children’s upkeep, and ensuring each child’s wellbeing. Poirier deprived herself of food and neglected her own health. Thus, Father Fleury and Germaine Ribière● (q.v.) had to summon a social worker to take care of her after she fled from Poitiers. On March 27, 1979, Yad Vashem recognized Pierrette Poirier as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor Roland de Pury●, Lyons, France, (Gutman, 2003, p. 467)

(See above)

Germaine Ribière● was a young student who lived with her parents in Limoges (Haute-Vienne). During the German occupation, she abandoned her studies, left home, and devoted herself to saving Jewish children. Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944. (Gutman, 2003, p. 467)

Ribière, Germaine File 367 Germaine Ribière was a young student who lived with her parents in Limoges (Haute-Vienne). During the German occupation, she abandoned her studies, left home, and devoted herself to saving Jewish children. Ribière, a devout Catholic, joined the rescue networks in which clergymen such as Father Roger Braun (q.v.), Father Pierre Chaillet● (q.v.) and Bishop Jules Saliège (q.v.) were involved. Ribière made contact with Jewish families living in France and, after getting their permission, arranged hiding places for their children with non-Jewish families and in convents. The children owed their survival to her actions. In 1940, Ribière escorted the two children from the Domb family, who lived in Paris, over the demarcation line into the Vichy zone, where she found a Christian institution willing to hide them until the end of the occupation. Ribière was an activist in the Amitié Chrétienne, which was established in Lyons in 1941 to help Jewish and other victims of the Vichy and occupation decrees. On January 27, 1943, Ribière attended this organization’s emergency board meeting in the home of the Protestant minister Roland de Pury● (q.v.) in Lyons. The meeting planned how to warn Jews, who were coming to collect forged papers at the organization’s offices on Ste.-Catherine Street, not to enter the office. The Gestapo had set a trap for anyone who entered. It was decided that early the next morning, Ribière would dress up as a cleaning woman and spend the day scrubbing the stairs and other parts of the building.

This afforded her an opportunity to warn every Jew who arrived. The operation succeeded beyond all hopes. Not a single Jew was caught. A year later, when the Allied forces liberated the concentration camps in Germany, Ribière joined a team led by Yves Farge, the High Commissioner of the Republic in Lyons, and spent several months aiding the survivors. After this, she completed her studies and was certified as a social worker. As partof her work and because of the trust she had earned among French Jewry, Ribière volunteered in 1953 to rescue Robert and Gérald Finaly, two Jewish orphans who had been baptized by the director of the nursery where they stayed during the war. After the war, the director refused to give them back to their family and they were brought into Spain illegally and hidden in a convent there. Ribière traveled to Spain, located the children, brought them back to France, and delivered them to their aunt and uncle in Israel. Germaine Ribière passed away in Paris on November 20, 1999 at the age of 82. On July 18, 1967, Yad Vashem recognized Germaine Ribière as Righteous Among the Nations.

General Pierre Robert de Saint-Vincent● was the military governor of Lyons. Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944; leader Armée Secrète (Secret Army), Gutman, 2003, pp. 472-473)

Robert de Saint-Vincent, General Pierre File 3547 In 1942, General Pierre Robert de Saint-Vincent was the military governor of Lyons. Since 1941, he had also been among the patrons of the Amitié Chrétienne organization, established in Lyons to assist Jews suffering under the Vichy regime. The organization’s highly placed supporters included Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier● (q.v.) and Pastor Marc Boegner● (q.v.). In 1942, Saint-Vincent was active in the anti-German underground Armée Secrète and helped hide General Giraud, until he could flee to northern Africa. General Giraud had escaped German captivity and was being sought by the Vichy authorities for treason. On August 29, 1942, Saint-Vincent was instructed to have a company of soldiers under his command maintain order at the Perrache-Lyons railroad station while a group of 550 Jews was placed aboard a deportation train to Drancy, and from there to the east. Saint-Vincent proudly refused to follow the order, asserting that his troops would never participate in such an action. His refusal delayed the operation for 24 hours or more, during which time some of those marked for deportation fled and survived. Due to his action, the Vichy government decided summarily to suspend General de Saint-Vincent from all his army responsibilities. In November 1942, when the Germans occupied the southern zone, he had to hide in order to escape them. Using a forged identity, he found hiding places in Grenoble and later in Nice. Thus, at personal risk throughout, he placed the values of human dignity and justice above fealty to his superiors’ orders.

On June 24, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Pierre Robert de Saint-Vincent as Righteous Among the Nations.

Sentou, Fernand Sentou●,

Yvette Sentou●, Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944.

Sentou, Fernand Sentou, Yvette File 4828 In October 1940, seventeen-year-old Hannelore Trautman, a native of the town of Karlsruhe in Germany, was incarcerated with her parents and younger brother in the detention camp at Gurs and later in the Rivesaltes camp in southern France, not far from the Spanish border. After twenty months in detention, Hannelore, her brother, and her friend Renée Stein were released through the intervention of the Jewish organization OSE. They were lodged at a farm school in Charry, near Moissac, under the auspices of the French Jewish Scout movement. There they received the bitter news that their parents had been deported to the east. After spending a few months in Charry, they were warned of an impending raid by the local gendarmerie and fled to the nearby forest. They spent several weeks in the open air, in the cold and rain and then were sent to the Château de Bègue in Cazaubon, in the département of Gers, which was run by the Amitié Chrétienne, and admitted Jewish refugees who had been freed from French camps. When Victor Glasberg, the head of the institute, was arrested in December 1943, they had to flee once more. They were sheltered temporarily by Fernand Sentou, the mayor of Cazaubon, who provided forged identification cards with which they could find a safer refuge. The risk taken by Fernand and Yvette Sentou in sheltering the young fugitives was very great because the area swarmed with Germans and informers, and surprise inspections were routine.

On January 2, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Fernand and Yvette Sentou as Righteous Among the Nations.

Jean-Marie Soutou● was a young civil servant who moved to Lyons after fleeing occupied Paris. He aligned himself with the Catholic opponents of the Vichy regime, led by Father Pierre Chaillet● (q.v.). Founder Christian Friendship, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944. (Gutman, 2003, p. 506)

Soutou, Jean-Marie File 5890 Jean-Marie Soutou was a young civil servant who moved to Lyons after fleeing occupied Paris. He aligned himself with the Catholic opponents of the Vichy regime, led by Father Pierre Chaillet● (q.v.). In 1941, Soutou and Chaillet took part in establishing the Amitié Chrétienne organization to defend victims of the Vichy regime and the occupation authorities. Soutou produced forged papers for Jews and participated in missions to smuggle Jews into Switzerland and hide Jewish children. He was the one who usually received the Jews who came to the Amitié Chrétienne office in downtown Lyons to obtain forged papers and obtain material support. On January 27, 1943, the Gestapo broke into the organization’s offices and arrested everyone, including Father Chaillet and Soutou. They were interrogated on suspicion of providing refuge to wanted Jews. Chaillet extricated himself a few hours later, but Soutou was incarcerated for further interrogation. Thanks to the intervention of Cardinal Gerlier● (q.v.), Soutou was released after three weeks of confinement. His comrades, aware that his life was in danger, immediately sent him across the Swiss border. After the war, Soutou held various high-ranking diplomatic positions and chaired the French Red Cross (CRF). On March 22, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Jean-Marie Soutou as Righteous Among the Nations.

Gaston Vincent●, a former radio operator in World War I and a war invalid, was born in northern France to a Baptist minister. In 1941, he created the Marseilles branch of Amitié Chrétienne (Christian Friendship).

Vincent, Gaston Vincent, Michel File 3338 Gaston Vincent, a former radio operator in World War I and a war invalid, was born in northern France to a Baptist minister. In 1941, he created the Marseilles branch of Amitié chrétienne, which had recently been founded in Lyons to help victims of the Vichy regime. In cooperation with the Jewish relief organization for children, OSE, Vincent opened the Vert Plan shelter in Mazargues (Bouches due Rhône). Under the responsibility of Gaston Vincent, this institution sheltered Jewish children whom the OSE managed to remove from the detention camps, mainly the Tuilerie des Milles, near Aix on Provence. In August 1942 a friend, a brigadier in the police named Henri Maurin, warned Vincent that the mass arrest of foreign Jews was imminent. With the effective help of his eldest son Michel Vincent●, eighteen, Gaston Vincent warned many of the threatened families, who fled their homes before it was too late. On November 11, 1942, a German general requisitioned the Vert Plan shelter. It was necessary to find a place, as soon as possible, for the thirty Jewish children who had been sheltered there. Dressed in the uniforms of the Protestant scouts, the young refugees were taken to Vic sur Cère (Cantal). Vincent had organized the convoy and Michel, his son, made the trip with the children, who were taken in and hidden in an improvised shelter directed by Suzanne Jacquet● (q.v.) located in a building bearing the sign, “Touring Hôtel.”

Gaston later took on important responsibilities for the Resistance. He was captured by the Germans and executed in June 1944. On January 28, 1986, Yad Vashem recognized Gaston and Michel Vincent as Righteous Among the Nations.

Michael Vincent, ● Marseilles, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944. After the war, Suzanne married Michel Vincent, the son of Gaston Vincent, who had escorted children to safety from Vert Plan in November 1942.

Susanne Jacquet Vincent●, Marseilles, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944. (Gutman, 2003, p

Vincent-Jacquet, Suzanne File 3338 Shortly after finishing her secondary studies in 1941, Suzanne Jacquet devoted most of her time to service in the Marseilles branch of Amitié chrétienne. That association was founded a short time earlier in Lyons and provided help to the victims of the Vichy regime. Her leader in Marseilles, Gaston Vincent● (q.v.) opened the Vert Plan shelter in Mazargues (Bouches du Rhône). This residence hid Jewish children from the detention camps in the southern zone. On November 11, 1942, a German general requisitioned Vert Plan. The children were hastily sent to Vic sur Cère (Cantal). Suzanne Jacquet took responsibility for an improvised shelter in a building bearing the sign, “Touring Hôtel,” where the children were placed, in association with the OSE. That Jewish charity regarded the shelter as a transitory place of refuge from which every child was later taken either to a host family or spirited across the Swiss border. At the Touring Hôtel, Suzanne Jacquet also forged identification papers and taught her “art” to the oldest of her pupils. Hélène Turner, eighteen years old, had been saved from the Rivesaltes camp and placed in Vic sur Cère, was one of these. Ryna Himmelfarb, who narrowly escaped arrest in a roundup in Périgeux, arrived at the Touring Hôtel only in 1944. She was seventeen. After the war, Suzanne married Michel, the son of Gaston Vincent, who had escorted children to safety from Vert Plan in November 1942. On January 28, 1986, Yad Vashem recognized Suzanne Vincent-Jacquet as Righteous Among the Nations.

Mother Magda Zech●, Amitié Chrétienne; (AC), Lyon, France, 1940-1944. (Gutman, 2003)

Zech, Mother Magda File 4687 During the occupation, the convent of Notre-Dame de Sion in Grenoble was a stronghold of the Resistance. The Mother Superior of the convent, Mother Magda Zech, born in Belgium, headed a group of religious sisters in Strasbourg who had been evacuated at the beginning of the war with the city’s entire population. The sisters actively assisted members of the underground and hid many Jewish women and girls who were waiting to cross into Switzerland. Their number was particularly great between August 26 and early November of 1942, when the Vichy regime was conducting mass arrests of Jews, and from September 8, 1943, when the Germans entered Grenoble, until the liberation. Suzanne Erbsmann, a Belgian Jew, later testified about the great dangers the Mother Superior had taken upon herself. Jacqueline Mizné’s father, an activist in the underground, supplied the convent with forged identification cards for the Jewish refugees. After his wife was arrested, he placed his six-year-old daughter in the convent. In her postwar testimony, she recalled the warm atmosphere in the convent and the nuns’ devotion. Mother Magda loyally tended the children in the convent and was assisted constantly by Sister Aguadich-Paulin● (q.v.). On July 16, 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Mother Magda Zech as Righteous Among the Nations.

Denise Paulin● was a sister in the convent of Notre-Dame de Sion in Grenoble, where she was known as Sister Joséphine. She also belonged to an underground group (the Amitié Crétienne) in which Father Pierre Chaillet● (q.v.) and Germaine Ribière● (q.v.) were members (Gutman, 2003)

Aguadich-Paulin, Denise (Sister Joséphine) File 4246 In 1941-1943, Denise Paulin was a sister in the convent of Notre-Dame de Sion in Grenoble, where she was known as Sister Joséphine. She also belonged to an underground group (the Amitié Crétienne) in which Father Pierre Chaillet (q.v.) and Germaine Ribière (q.v.) were members, and was active in rescuing scores of Jewish children and adults. In July 1943, the gendarmerie discovered her underground activities and she was forced to flee Grenoble. Relocating to Paris, she made herself available to the OSE (Organisation de Secours aux Enfants). Many testimonies illustrate the efforts, contacts, courage, resourcefulness, and purposefulness with which Paulin saved Jewish children by arranging safe refuge, shelter, forged identity cards, rescue from detention, and escape into Switzerland. Paulin also provided ration cards for Jewish children and adults fleeing the gendarmerie and the Gestapo. The Elbaz family is an example of Paulin’s efforts. After the mother was deported in 1942, Paulin, working on behalf of the OSE, arrived at the Elbaz home, where five members of the family—the father, the sons Léon and Jacques, and the daughters Jacqueline and Mazeltob—resided. She implored the father to let her hide the boys in a farmer’s house in a village in the département of Sarthe, but M. Elbaz only agreed after entreaties from his daughter Mazeltob. On another mission for the OSE, Paulin arranged the transportation by train of forty children to Le Mans, capital of the département of Sarthe.

The children, organized into groups of ten, were taken in peasants’ wagons to a large farm, and dispersed by the local peasants in groups of two or three. The entire operation took place in the dead of night and all the children were handed over to their adoptive families in the villages. The Elbaz boys, who remember the journey well, recounted later that after they had been out of touch with their father for six months—sincecorrespondence had become dangerous—their sister Mazeltob came to visit them. When Mazeltob returned, Elbaz and his daughters were arrested, probably due to an informer. After the war, Paulin visited the villages to inquire about the welfare of her charges. She continued to assist the Elbaz family. She enrolled the sons in vocational studies at the ORT school and placed the daughter Jacqueline, who had returned from the camps in poor physical condition, with her own parents in Chapareillan for six months of convalescence. Benzion Anavi, a Bulgarian-born Jew, asked Paulin, who was usually successful in obtaining the release of internees, to help him free a woman friend from a detention camp. Paulin was not able to effect her release but sent her food parcels. Paulin remained in touch with Anavi after he joined the underground in efforts to rescue Jews by smuggling them into Switzerland. When Anavi was arrested and sent to Gurs, Paulin sent him food parcels as was her custom, and after some effort succeeded in getting him released. Paulin’s● parents (q.v.) cooperated in her rescue work and, when necessary, allowed her to hide Jews in their home. One of these wards was Hélène Brenner, who remembers meeting another Jewish couple in the home of Paulin’s parents. Paulin married a Jew, M. Aguadich, and remained on close terms with Mazeltob Elbaz-Wajsbrot after the war. On May 16, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Denise Aguadich-Paulin as Righteous Among the Nations.

CIMADE

See Committee for Action on Behalf of Refugees (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; also Pastor Marc Boegner Rescue Network, (Boegner)

Comité de Nîmes, see Nîmes Committee (Camps Committee)

Committee for Action on Behalf of Refugees (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE)

France, established 1939; CIMADE maintained four stations: Marseilles, Vabre, Pomeyol and Le-Chambon-sur-Lignon; see also Archdiocese of Toulouse, France; Diocese of Nice, France; Pères de Sion, France; American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA); Swiss Children’s Rescue Organization; Czech Aid; Douvaine Escape Network; Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon; Christian Friendship, Marc Boegner Rescue Network, (YV M31/3830 [Barot]; YV M31/3369 [Henri Mannen]; YV M31/2698 [Marc Boegner]; Barot, 1968; Delpard, 1993; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 1990, 2003; Halle, 1979; Lazare, p. 53; Moore, 2010; Mouchon, 1970; Rayski, 2005)

Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier●, leader (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), head of the Catholic Church, Lyons Diocese, primate of Gaul, honorary president, Amitié Chrétienne (Christian Friendship), (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, pp. 89-90, 268, 289; Hallie, 1979, pp. 41-42; Zuccotti, 1993, pp. 62, 72, 74, 139, 141, 146, 147, 149, 150, 297n75, 311n32)

Gerlier, Cardinal Pierre Marie File 1769 Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier headed the Catholic Church in the diocese of Lyons. He held the distinguished title, Primate of All Gaul, and held the highest rank in the Catholic hierarchy in France. Gerlier, was a supporter of Marshal Pétain and urged his flock to support the leader. However, he expressed moderate but public criticism of the Vichy regime’s anti-Jewish policies. On September 3, 1942, the German command in France reported that, according to Prime Minister Pierre Laval, “The demands that we made regarding the Jewish question have met with unparalleled opposition on the part of the Church, the head of that opposition being Cardinal Gerlier.” Together with Marc Boegner● (q.v.), the head of the Protestant church in France, Gerlier was honorary president of the Amitié Chrétienne, an organization established in Lyons, in 1941, to defend victims of the Vichy regime. On August 30, 1942, the authorities pressured the leaders of the Amitié Chrétienne to hand over 108 Jewish children that they were suspected of illegally removing from Venissieux camp. Gerlier gave his support the rescuers and the children were saved. Cardinal Gerlier also intervened with the Gestapo to obtain the release of Jean-Marie Soutou● (q.v.), an Amitié Chrétienne leader who was arrested in January 1943, imprisoned, and interrogated on suspicion of hiding Jews. On July 15, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor Marc Boegner●, president of the Protestant Church in France, co-founder and head of CIMADE (Comité Inter-Mouvements Aupres des Evacues), Amitié Chrétienne (Christian Friendship), awarded Righteous Among the Nations title June 21, 1988 (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, pp. 89-90, 195, 268; Hallie, 1979, p. 43; Moore, 2010, pp. 101, 128-129, 131; Zuccotti, 1993, pp. 58-59, 62, 141, 146, 150)

Boegner, Pastor Marc File 2698 In May 1941, Pastor Marc Boegner, president of the Protestant church in France, became the first leading French cleric to protest the antisemitic laws of the Vichy regime, explicitly and officially. In 1940, Boegner became head of CIMADE, a Protestant relief organization that acted on behalf of Jews incarcerated in concentration camps in France. In 1942, Boegner and Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier● (q.v.) served as honorary presidents of Amitié Chrétienne, an organization set up to support French Jewry. Boegner supported and encouraged Protestant ministers and many active laypeople to rescue Jews, and his prestige lent great impact to his statements. Thanks to Boegner, Protestant communities sheltered thousands of Jews, primarily in Lyons, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, and the départements of Lozère, Gard, Drôme, and Tarn. Many others were smuggled into Switzerland with the help of Protestant ministers who worked in border areas under Boegner’s influence and inspiration. Starting in the summer of 1941, Boegner maintained personal contact with the Vichy leadership—Marshal Pétain, Prime Minister Pierre Laval and Commissioner of Jewish Affairs Xavier Vallat. In his talks with them, Boegner condemned the regime’s antisemitic policies and sought to have the anti-Jewish decrees rescinded. In a stormy meeting with Laval in the summer of 1942, Boegner vehemently protested the intention to deport Jewish children to camps in the east and the inhumane character of these measures.

On September 6, 1942, during the annual Assemblée du Désert at the Mas Soubeyran, in the département of Gard, Boegner preached to more than sixty parsons and urged them to rescue Jews. This courageous attitude earned him many enemies. In the summer of 1941, the radical antisemitic weekly Au Pilori began to castigate Boegner’s activity and to demand that he be prosecuted. Beecause of his courageous deeds on behalf of the Jews, Marc Boegner risked his life and liberty, likeother Protestant ministers, some of whom were arrested and deported. He was personally involved in the rescue of approximately one hundred German Jewish children who had been interned at the Gurs concentration camp in southern France. With the help of others, he helped hide the children when the gendarmerie was about to deport them to Auschwitz. Thus, the children’s lives were saved. In 1940, the Strauss family, French-born Jews, reached the city of Nîmes in the unoccupied zone, where Boegner moved in 1941. In November 1942, after the Germans extended their occupation to the Vichy zone, M. Strauss asked Boegner for his help. The minister received him warmly and sent his family to the city of Montélimar, where he arranged a hiding place for them. In 1943, when the Strausses had to move again, Boegner sent them to the Protestant seminary in Collonges, in the département of Haute-Savoie near the Swiss border, where they found refuge until the liberation in August 1944. Through his resolute opposition to Vichy collaboration with Germany and his support of the rescue of French Jewry—which he advocated fearlessly to those at the head of the regime—Boegner had a profound influence on the French Protestant clergy. As a result, thousands of Jews indirectly owe their survival to him. On November 26, 1987, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor Marc Boegner as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pierre Chaillet●, a Jesuit priest in Lyons, mobilized Catholics during the occupation to help camp inmates in southern France, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),

Chaillet, Father Pierre File 1770 Pierre Chaillet, a Jesuit priest in Lyons, mobilized Catholics during the occupation to help camp inmates in southern France. He commented on the inactivity of the Catholic Church: “It pains me to note that everything being done to help prisoners and urban refugees is carried out by Protestant and Jewish organizations. ” In 1941, Chaillet inaugurated an underground journal called Les Cahiers du Témoignage Chrétien. The first edition, entitled “France, Beware, Lest You Lose Your Soul, ” had a print run of 5,000 copies. In 1942, four additional editions appeared, each twenty pages long, as did a second printing of the first edition, with 30,000 copies distributed. Les Cahiers was the only underground journal in France that pointedly rejected antisemitism and countered the authorities’ antisemitic propaganda with its own propaganda. This effort, orchestrated by Chaillet, gathered momentum across France and continued until liberation. In cooperation with Protestant minister Roland de Pury● (q.v.) and others, Chaillet helped found the rescue organization Amitié Chrétienne. He also provided Jewish refugees with forged papers, helped smuggle Jews into Switzerland, and in late August 1942, when a group of activists from Amitié Chrétienne came to the aid of Jewish rescue organizations, he took part in the rescue of 108 Jewish children from the Venissieux transit camp near Lyons. Chaillet was ordered, by the Vichy Interior Ministry, to divulge to Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier the addresses of the Jewish children’s hiding places.

When Chaillet refused, the government banished him for two months to a psychiatric hospital in Privas, a town south of Lyons. In February 1943, the Gestapo raided the offices of Amitié Chrétienne and arrested all the members there, including Chaillet. He was made to stand facing a wall; while he waited to be interrogated, he swallowed the incriminating documents that were in his pocket. When he finished, Chailletbegan to shout, protesting the injustice being done to “a poor village priest, a refugee from the north. ” He was released, but only after receiving a brutal beating. Undeterred, Chaillet continued to campaign for the rescue of Jews in his underground newspaper. Father Chaillet was one of the intellectual leaders of the French Catholic community. In contrast to Cardinal Suhard, head of the Church in Paris, who declared that illegal actions on behalf of Jews were “grave violation[s] of the precepts of personal and collective ethics, ” Chaillet argued that “saving an innocent person is not a rebellious act but rather compliance with the oral, unwritten precepts of law and justice. ” On July 15, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Father Pierre Chaillet as Righteous Among the Nations.

Mireille Philip● Co-founder and leader, Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), smuggled young Jews to Switzerland, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title March 18, 1976, (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, p. 439)

Philip, Mireille File 1026 Mireille Philip was active in the Protestant rescue organization CIMADE. Her husband, Socialist leader André Philip, had left occupied France in 1940 and joined General de Gaulle. Mireille assumed responsibility for leading small groups of young Jews from the town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon to the Swiss border, from where they were smuggled into Switzerland. Although aware of the risks of these operations, she worked energetically, instilled confidence in the youth, and recruited additional volunteers for work in rescuing Jews. CIMADE obtained Swiss entry visas for all Jews whom its agents delivered across the border. To obtain the visas, lists had to be taken to Switzerland with extreme precautions. For that purpose, Mireille Philip sometimes went to Geneva on a locomotive, disguised as a railroad mechanic. Sometimes it was necessary to wait several days for the visas, and Philip would have to hide her Jews in the département of Haute-Savoie, near the border. She was assisted by Catholic priests and institutions, including Father Camille Folliet● (q.v.) of Annecy and Father Jean Rosay● (q.v.) of the town of Douvaine. In January 1943, Mireille Philip turned over her duties in CIMADE to Pierre Piton● (q.v.) and joined the Resistance. After the war, she described her experiences in the rescue operations: “By helping them, we received more than we gave. After all, it was so convenient to be in our situation and not in theirs. For we had chosen our role, which, in my opinion, was a normal situation that discriminated in our favor.”

On March 18, 1976, Yad Vashem recognized Mireille Philip as Righteous Among the Nations.

Madelein Barot●, co-founder, general secretary, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),  awarded Righteous Among the Nations title March 28, 1988 (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, pp. 57, 402; Hallie, 1979; Zuccotti, 1993, pp. 68-69, 71-72, 228, 230, 231, 246)

Barot, Madeleine File 3830 Madeleine Barot was active in Protestant youth movements, and secretary general of CIMADE which was established as an umbrella organization for these movements. CIMADE provided welfare for evacuees from localities along the French-German border. Since most of these evacuees returned home in the summer of 1940, the organization decided to assist victims of the Vichy regime and the occupation, most of whom were foreign Jews. In the autumn of 1940, destitute Jewish women were giving birth in the concentration camp at Gurs, in southern France. Barot presented herself at the camp gate carrying a package of bedding for the newborn infants and told the guard that she had to distribute its contents to the new mothers. Thus Barot managed to enter the camp and, together with another CIMADE activist, Jeanne Merle d’Aubigné, she visited every day, each time on a different pretext. After receiving permission from the commander of Gurs to open a CIMADE branch in a barrack, Barot took up residence in the camp. The YMCA, through diplomatic channels, unsuccessfully petitioned the Vichy authorities for entry permits for CIMADE representatives. Due to Barot’s resourcefulness and courage, she and her associates were nonetheless able to accomplish their mission. CIMADE’s presence in Gurs became a fait accompli, and Barot struggled to effect the release of camp inmates. She succeeded in having children, ill adults, and the elderly transferred to facilities that she opened under CIMADE auspices, mainly in the town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

From the summer of 1942, Jews brought to these institutions also faced the danger of arrest, but Barot resolutely used underground strategies to protect her wards -- providing false papers and transferring some to other institutions and some to Switzerland. Barot’s activities are believed to have saved hundreds of Jews. On March 28, 1988, Yad Vashem recognized Madeleine Barot as Righteous Among the Nations.

Adrien Benveniste, Sixth Division, French Jewish Scouts (EIF), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE); CIMADE.

Adrien Benveniste established a rescue network to take Jewish children to Switzerland.  He worked with CIMADE.  He also worked with the Children’s Aid Rescue Society (OSE) at 25 Rue d’Italie in Marseilles.

[Rayski, Adam. The Choice of Jews Under Vichy, Between Submission and Resistance. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press and US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 2005), p. 179.  Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), p. 29.]

Pastor Paul Brunel● (b. 1884), (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Prostestant Church, Nimes (Gutman, 2003, pp. 115-116)

Mme. Brunel● (Gutman, 2003, pp. 115-116)

Brunel, Pastor Paul Brunel, Charlotte File 2698k The Reverend Paul Brunel (b.1884) headed the Protestant church in Nîmes, the capital of the département of Gard. Because of his position, he had contact with Vichy functionaries, especially at the municipality and in the gendarmerie, and he occasionally went to see them to secure the release of people who had been arrested. Brunel was not only acquainted with his own congregation members but also with many Jews in Nîmes. When the nature of the Vichy collaboration with the Germans became clear, Brunel joined the group of Protestant clergy under Pastor Marc Boegner● (q.v.). This group helped Resistance fighters and persecuted persons. After the Germans occupied all of France, the group redoubled its efforts, concentrating mainly on providing aid to Jews. Although the local Gestapo commander stated publicly that a Protestant minister’s word was untrustworthy, the commander did not dare to attack him. Brunel helped the Kuhns, a Jewish family who left Paris at the very beginning of the war, to seek refuge in the south. M. Kuhn and his older daughter were arrested at the demarcation line, their fate sealed. Mme Kuhn managed to reach Nîmes with her thirteen-year-old daughter Gisèle and her four-year-old son Marcel. She asked Brunel for help, and he placed her with a French family as a domestic and found a small apartment for her. The two children were brought to an orphanage run by Brunel’s loyal friends, Mlle Danielle and Mme Jeanne Aigoun, the latter known as Tante Jeanne.

Brunel explained to Gisèle and Marcel that they would be Protestants until the end of the war and could then revert to being Jews. One day, in an attempt to join her mother, Gisèle left the orphanage and was arrested by the police. She was first sent to Drancy and then to a concentration camp in northern Germany. American troops liberated the camp on the day she was to be sent to her death. After a brief convalescence in Sweden, Gisèle returned to Nîmes to locate her family and rescuer. Marcel Kuhn, who had been too little to understand, did not begin to think about the war and the man who had saved his life until much later, after he had established a family of his own. He returned to Nîmes and met with Pastor Brunel, with whom he remained in contact for many years. On January 5, 1984, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor Paul Brunel and his wife as Righteous Among the Nations.

André Chouraqui, OSE, worked with Pastor Andre Morel●

André Chouraqui, coordinator of the local OSE team, later described Morel’s activities. Chouraqui entrusted Morel with twenty Jewish children, whom he saved by placing them in safe havens with village families. At one point, the French gendarmerie arrested and prosecuted Morel for smuggling Jews into Switzerland. Morel was convicted and fined 4,000 French francs, beyond the means of the young clergyman. Chouraqui came to his aid.

Father Camille Folliet●, Annancy, founder, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),

Johanny Folliet●

Folliet, Father Camille Folliet, Johanny File 4872 The Vichy regime’s anti-Jewish legislation evoked sharp opposition from Father Camille Folliet of Annecy (Haute-Savoie). While Annecy was under Italian rule, between November 1942 and September 1943, it attracted many refugee Jews. The Schiffmans and their two daughters fled from Berlin to France, and arrived in Annecy in September 1942, intending to try to cross the border into Switzerland. They entered the local church, as did many other Jews who came to Annecy and asked Father Folliet for help. After twice failing to smuggle them to Switzerland, Folliet took them to his father’s home, and attended to all their needs, until an alternative hiding place was found. Jenny, one of the Schiffman daughters, performed household chores and helped with the elder Folliet’s children. Her parents and younger sister never left their room. Jenny contributed to the family’s livelihood by obtaining watches and clocks for her father, a watchmaker, to repair. She also helped Father Folliet deliver ration cards and bread to young activists in the underground. In her testimony, she recalled that Father Folliet helped many Jews cross the border into Switzerland. Despite the danger, the Schiffman family felt safe with Folliet’s parents. Jeanne Brousse● (q.v.), a clerk in the département offices in Annecy who viewed Father Folliet as the embodiment of patriotism and underground resistance, helped him obtain various documents needed to forge papers for Jewish refugees.

Folliet’s activities aroused suspicion. In June 1943, the Italian occupation forces arrested him, following an informer’s tip that he helped Jews and was active in the underground, and sentenced him to ten years in prison. He was deported to a camp in Italy, from which he was released, in March 1944. He renewed his underground connections as soon as he reached Paris. After the liberation, he enlisted in the French army. In April 1945, he died in combat againstthe Germans. After the war, Jenny Schiffman and her father returned to Annecy, visited their rescuer’s grave, and stayed in touch with his family. On February 27, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Father Camille Folliet and his father Johanny as Righteous Among the Nations.

Fanny-Marie and Jean-Jacques Astier● were poor peasants who lived in Chaumargeais, a village not far from Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Astier, Fanny-Marie Astier, Jean-Jacques File 4352 Fanny-Marie and Jean-Jacques Astier were poor peasants who lived in Chaumargeais, a village not far from Le Chambon-sur-Lignon near Tence. The Astiers’ home was about 2,000 meters from the St. Agrève-Chaumargeais road. One day in January 1944, a member of the underground came to the Astiers, carrying a Jewish child, Carl Landau, on his back. The boy’s leg was wounded. The underground member belonged to CIMADE, a Protestant organization which arranged hiding places for Jewish children. Landau, born in Germany, had been deported in 1940 to the camp in Gurs. Several months later, the Quakers liberated Landau from the camp and took care of him. Despite the Astiers’ poverty, they welcomed Landau warmly and cared for him devotedly until he recovered. The Astiers had two children: Paul, who was taken prisoner by the Germans, and Maurice, an adopted son. Their house was very small and had no electricity or running water; hay was stored in the barn’s attic. The Astiers hid Landau in a kitchen cupboard. He remained with them until June 1944. When the Germans came to the vicinity of Chaumargeais, Astier asked Landau to move to the forest with his belongings. There, Spanish partisans protected him. The Astier family continued to take care of the boy, without any financial recompense, and they endangered their lives solely for humanitarian considerations. On November 15, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Fanny-Marie and Jean-Jacques Astier as Righteous Among the Nations.

Jeanne Merle d’Aubigne● see Madeleine Barot● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),

Madeleine Barot was active in Protestant youth movements, and secretary general of CIMADE which was established as an umbrella organization for these movements. CIMADE provided welfare for evacuees from localities along the French-German border. Since most of these evacuees returned home in the summer of 1940, the organization decided to assist victims of the Vichy regime and the occupation, most of whom were foreign Jews. In the autumn of 1940, destitute Jewish women were giving birth in the concentration camp at Gurs, in southern France. Barot presented herself at the camp gate carrying a package of bedding for the newborn infants and told the guard that she had to distribute its contents to the new mothers. Thus Barot managed to enter the camp and, together with another CIMADE activist, Jeanne Merle d’Aubigné, she visited every day, each time on a different pretext. After receiving permission from the commander of Gurs to open a CIMADE branch in a barrack, Barot took up residence in the camp. The YMCA, through diplomatic channels, unsuccessfully petitioned the Vichy authorities for entry permits for CIMADE representatives. Due to Barot’s resourcefulness and courage, she and her associates were nonetheless able to accomplish their mission. CIMADE’s presence in Gurs became a fait accompli, and Barot struggled to effect the release of camp inmates. She succeeded in having children, ill adults, and the elderly transferred to facilities that she opened under CIMADE auspices, mainly in the town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

Fanny Barouch●, CIMADE, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003)

Georgette Barraud● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE). Lived in the largely Protestant town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Ran a children’s home that hid some of the Sabelman family.  (Gutman, 2003, p. 58)

Barraud, Georgette Barraud, Gabrielle File 3833 Georgette Barraud lived in the largely Protestant town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, where, with the help of her daughter Gabrielle, she directed Beau Soleil, a children’s home. During the occupation, Barraud maintained contact with CIMADE, a Protestant rescue network that operated in Le Chambon, and she was one of the many townspeople involved in its welfare activities. Barraud sheltered Jews, both individuals and families, in her children’s home for lengthy periods of time despite the danger of detention and deportation threatening anyone who hid Jews. Although they had forged identity cards, Barraud knew her charges were Jews. Two of them were fourteen-year-old Serge Sobelman, who was accepted as a student at the Collège Cévenol in Le Chambon, and his mother. They had traveled about France in order to avoid the fate of Serge’s father, who had been arrested and interned in a camp for “foreign workers”. After Serge’s father escaped from the camp, the family moved to Lyons. Mme Sobelman consulted with a Catholic priest there, and he referred her and her son to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Serge Sobelman was enrolled in the school under his own clearly Jewish name, but no one paid any attention. Sobelman joined a local YMCA-sponsored Protestant association and wore its distinctive shirt to avoid potential roundups of Jews. Sobelman lived in this fashion from June 1942 to March 1943, with his parents paying a minimal sum for his food and board.

Oskar Rosowsky, a German Jewish refugee who had lived in Nice since 1933, also stayed at Beau Soleil. After a futile attempt to cross the border, his mother had been interned in the camp at Rivesaltes. Rosowsky arranged her release with a forged authorization document. On the advice of two French partisans with whom he produced forged identity cards, Rosowsky went to Le Chambon and stayed for nearly two years; he spent October 1942 through January 1943 at the Barrauds’ home. Barraud obtained forged identity cards for other Jews staying in the home, including Professor George Vajda, a specialist in medieval Jewish philosophy and a senior lecturer at a rabbinical seminary. On March 28, 1988, Yad Vashem recognized Georgette and Gabriel Barraud as Righteous Among the Nations.

Rolande Birgy●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues CIMADE, guide, Jeunesse Ouvriere Chrétienne (JOC), escoreted refugees to safety, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title, (Yad Vashem Archives, Birgy testimony, 1987; Zuccotti, 1993, pp. 249-356n4)

Reverend Joseph Bourdon● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE). Was a lecturer at a Protestant seminary in Mende, capital of the département of Lozère, wife Henriette Boudon●. Protestant Seminary, Mende, capital of the Department of Lozère, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title December 22, 1983, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 101-102, 257-258)

Bourdon, Pastor Joseph Bourdon, Henriette File 2698n Bourdon, Pastor Joseph Bourdon, Henriette File 2698n The Reverend Joseph Bourdon was a lecturer at a Protestant seminary in Mende, capital of the département of Lozère.

CIMADE, an organization that hid refugees and supplied them with forged papers and ration cards, was particularly active in the area. Bourdon and his wife belonged to CIMADE and procured forged papers for Jews hidden by the organization. After the war, Fanny Gutwirth recounted that in July 1942, she had come to Mende, in the southern zone, with her parents and her brother Azriel. After receiving forged Belgian papers and ration cards, the Gutwirths rented an apartment from a family that lived opposite the seminary. In the summer of 1944, fearing that their son Azriel would be drafted for forced labor, the Gutwirths turned to Pastor Bourdon in the nearby seminary and apprised him of their situation. Bourdon sent the parents to Pastor André Gall● (q.v.) in Florac and their two children to Pastor François Chazel (q.v.) in Vebron, a village on the Cévennes plateau. Henriette Bourdon lent Fanny Gutwirth her bicycle so that she could reach her destination safely. Dr. Marc Monod, who was active in rescuing Jews in the département of Lozère, testified that Bourdon had contacts with various authorities and used them to warn Monod and the Jews who were in hiding with local families, about planned army and police actions. This enabled them to escape into nearby valleys until the danger had passed. On December 22, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor Joseph Bourdon and his wife Henriette as Righteous Among the Nations.

Mme. Henriette Bourdon●, Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues, CIMADE, wife of Pastor Joseph Bourdon, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title December 22, 1983, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 101-102, 257-258)

Pastor Chalres Cadier, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues CIMADE, helped prisoners in French concentration camps, (Fabre, 1970, p. 67)

Pastor Paul Chapal● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE). Transformed the vicarage of Annecy, in the départment of Haute-Savoie) into a shelter for refugees, both Jews and non-Jews, fleeing occupied France and preparing to cross the Swiss border.

Chapal, Pastor Paul Chapal, Odette File 5359 With the help of his wife, Odette, Pastor Chapal transformed the vicarage of Annecy, in the départment of Haute-Savoie) into a shelter for refugees, both Jews and non-Jews, fleeing occupied France and preparing to cross the Swiss border. Chapal was a member of CIMADE, a Protestant rescue network that saved hundreds of Jews and non-Jews by helping them escape France and looking after them in Switzerland. Chapal was awarded the Orange-Nassau Order of the Netherlands for rescuing pilots who made forced landings in France. His wife, Odette, whose experience in a senior post in the French scout movement gave her added skills in helping the refugees, was an active partner. Claude Spire, a refugee who lived in Annecy from August 1940 to 1945, was a high-school classmate and very good friend of Jeannie Chapal, the oldest of the Chapals’ five children. After the war, Spire recounted that it was very difficult for the children sheltered with the Chapals to stay cooped up for days on end in a closed space such as an attic or a cellar. To ease the situation, Odette prepared an outdoor corridor. She hung a clothesline, suspended blankets and large sheets on it that she fastened to the ground with large stones so that even the children’s feet were invisible. Jeannie and Claude calmed the children by taking them on “outings” in this fashion. Through friends, the Chapals had food delivered to the house and allayed neighbors’ suspicions by claiming that the food was for “guests.”

Jeannie was an active assistant in her parents’ rescue operations. Chapal and his wife, who were known for their modesty, did not accept the Righteous Among the Nations medallion, telling their children that they had simply “done the right thing” during the occupation. On September 20, 1992, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor Paul Chapal and his wife Odette as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor François Chazel● and wife Liliane● (q.v.) in Vebron, a village on the Cévennes plateau. (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE)

Chazel, Pastor François Chazel, Liliane File 2698b During the occupation, Pastor François Chazel (b. 1914) was the pastor of Vebron and Rousses, two poor villages in the département of Lozère. When persecution of the Jews began shortly after the establishment of the Vichy regime, Chazel and his wife Liliane (b. 1912) became active in the Protestant organization CIMADE (Commission Inter-Mouvements auprès des Evacués) and engaged in sheltering families and individuals in remote valleys in the Cévennes Mountains. They found people willing to take in refugees and warned of impending raids. The Chazels vigilantly assisted everyone in need during this period, relying on the cooperation and solidarity of the residents of Vebron and Rousses: the mayor, postal workers, physicians, and even gendarmes. After the war, Fanny Hadari (Gutwirth), a Jewish woman born in 1919, told that in July 1942 she and her parents, Hélène and Elias Gutwirth, and her brother Azriel, made their way to Mende, the capital of the département of Lozère, which was still in the unoccupied zone. After acquiring forged Belgian papers and ration cards, they were housed across from the Protestant seminary and established a relationship with Joseph Bourdon● (q.v.), the pastor of the seminary. A few months later, the Germans occupied the south of France, but the situation did not become critical where they were until the Allies landed in Normandy. German forces controlled all roads leading out of Mende.

Hélène and Elias Gutwirth were smuggled out of town on back roads; their children, following Bourdon’s instructions, fled by bicycle to the Chazels’ home. The Chazels provided the youngsters with forged papers and sheltered them for two days. Pastor Chazel then found them another refuge with a farmer, who explained to the neighbors that he had hired them to help with farm chores. Chazel remained in touch with them until the end of the occupation. After the war, Hélène Gutwirth recalled long philosophicaldiscussions with Chazel and the friendly advice he had given. Immediately after the liberation, Chazel was appointed director of the civil-affairs department in the préfecture of Lozère. Even after she immigrated with her son to Israel, Hélène Gutwirth continued to correspond with Chazel. In her postwar testimony, Liliane Chazel was able to list the names of dozens of Jews whom she and her husband had saved, hidden, or protected by providing false papers and real jobs. Many of them continued to correspond with her after the war. She credited the rescue mission’s success to the solidarity of the residents of the humble Christian community of Vebron and Rousses. Thus the mayor, Théophile Hugon, a retired lay teacher, was asked to give the departmental office a list of Jews who lived in his area of jurisdiction. He refused, simply declaring, “Look, here in Vébron we have a Catholic church and a Protestant church, so I can count the Catholics and Protestants. But we don’t have a synagogue.” On December 22, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor François Chazel and his wife Liliane as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor Charles Cuillon, CIMADE, (Fabre, 1970)

Roger Darcissac● was the principal of the public school in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in the département of Haute-Loire, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),

Darcissac, Roger File 3905 Roger Darcissac was the principal of the public school in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in the département of Haute-Loire. In March 1942, thirteen-year-old Serge Sobelman wished to be accepted in the school. Being afraid to disclose his Jewish identity, he used an assumed name and did not show Darcissac his identification papers and education records. Darcissac immediately realized that Sobelman was Jewish and enrolled him, nevertheless. Indeed, he was not the only Jewish youngster in the student body. Darcissac, who ordinarily showed interest in the families and relatives of his Christian students, never asked the Jewish children about their background to avoid embarrassing or worrying them. Like everyone in Chambon, Darcissac, pretended there were no Jews in the town, making it easier to hide them. Darcissac demonstrated his loyalty and devotion to the Jewish students when he was arrested together with Pastor André Trocmé● (q.v.) and Pastor Edouard Theis● (q.v.), who were also active in saving Jews. Darcissac courageously withstood interrogation by the French police and did not reveal the presence of Jewish boys in his school. After he was released and allowed to return to his school, Darcissac continued to protect his Jewish pupils until the end of the occupation, despite the danger. Sobelman remained at Darcissac’s school until his graduation, in July 1944. Darcissac gave him a diploma with the assumed name that Sobelman had chosen. By allowing Jewish children to attend his school during the occupation, Darcissac risked his life, as can be seen from the case of Pastor Daniel Trocmé● (q.v.), who headed the “La Maison des Roches,” a boarding school in Le Chambon. When the Germans discovered several Jewish boys in Trocmé’s school, they immediately deported Trocmé and the youngsters to an extermination camp, where all of them perished. On November 14, 1988, Yad Vashem recognized Roger Darcissac as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor J. Delpech, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),

Father Théomir Devaux● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), head of Les Pères de Sion Convent, Church of Saint Sulpice, Paris, France, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title August 6, 1996, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 201-202; Zuccotti, 1993)

Devaux, Father Théomir File 7245 Father Théomir Devaux headed the Les Pères de Sion convent in Paris and devoted much of his life to strengthening Jewish-Christian relations. He spent several years at the Convent of the Fathers of Zion (the Ratisbonne) in Jerusalem, edited the journal La Question d’Israël, and turned his institution into a center for research and teaching. During the occupation, Father Devaux facilitated the rescue of hundreds of Jewish children, some of whom had lost their parents or had been forcibly separated from them during the occupation. He worked hand in hand with representatives of Jewish rescue organizations to provide children with forged papers and arrange with Christian religious institutions and families to accommodate the children. Devaux regularly allowed the children to stay in his convent overnight or longer, until he could move them from Paris to permanent hideouts. He forwarded subsistence money for the children to the institutions and the foster families, and for those who had lost their parents and had nowhere to return after the occupation, he applied to obtain the status of pupille de la nation (orphans under national custodianship). The survivors recalled Devaux, who collaborated in these operations with Father Emile Planckaert● (q.v.), for his humanitarian acts and his personal devotion to the Jewish children who lost at the same time both their families and their homes. Fanny Barouch, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, was arrested with her brother but managed to escape from the police station with him and find refuge in a series of institutions affiliated with a Jewish rescue network, which used Father Devaux’s services.

She finally arrived at the Notre Dame de Sion convent in Paris; Father Devaux placed her in hiding at the Institution de la Croix in Antony and thus enabled Fanny to complete her studies. After the war, she learned that the nuns, who had treated her affectionately, had also hidden other Jewish girlsin the institution. Another Jewish girl, Nedjenna Elbaz, could not adjust to the institution where she had been placed. Father Devaux responded by transferring her to a different school. There, too, her problems persisted. Father Devaux found a solution allowing her to return to her father. Thanks to his moral rigor and courage, Father Devaux benefited from the close cooperation of the members of his community and others who helped him. In July 1940, the Gestapo raided Devaux’s convent, confiscated the archives and library, which specialized in Jewish matters, and closed his journal. After the war, the convent resumed its war against bigotry and antisemitism. Les Cahiers Sioniens, the convent’s new journal, emphasized the development of Christian thought about Jews and Judaism and contributed significantly to the preparation of the encyclical issued by Pope John XXIII, Nostra Aetate, which dealt with the Jews. On August 6, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Father Théomir Devaux as Righteous Among the Nations.

André Dumas, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE). Rivesaltes French detention camp, Pyrenees Orientals, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title December 26, 1944, (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, pp. 214-215)

A young theology student, was active in the Protestant organization CIMADE

Dumas, Pastor André File 6368 André Dumas, a young theology student, was active in the Protestant organization CIMADE (Comité Intermouvements Auprès des Evacués), which operated in the Rivesaltes detention camp west of Perpignan, near the Spanish border. Dumas started a Scout group in Rivesaltes, which was very beneficial to the teenagers and other young internees. Scout meetings and other cultural activities were immeasurably more important in Rivesaltes than in time of peace, because they distracted the participants from their hunger and inspired hope that humanity had not vanished from the world. In January 1941, Isaac Kraemer, a young Jew from Mannheim, was transferred to Rivesaltes from Gurs. Kraemer joined the Scouts and became friendly with Dumas. In the summer of 1942, several teenage boys under the age of eighteen were sent out to work on farms in the vicinity of Moissac, in the département of Tarn-et-Garonne. In August, the authorities decided to send them back to the camps where they had originally been detained. Upon discovering the authorities’ intentions, several boys escaped and went into hiding. Over the next two weeks, they hiked and hitchhiked to the town of Annemasse near the Swiss border, where they joined a scout group about to cross into Switzerland. Kraemer, who had intended to join them, was captured and interned in the prison in Annecy. Before the authorities had decided his fate, he managed to send a letter to Dumas, who sent testimony on his behalf and a forged certificate.

Thanks to Dumas’s testimony, Kraemer was released and not returned to Rivesaltes. After the war, Kraemer discovered that Dumas had provided forged papers for other Jewish inmates at Rivesaltes, thus helping to save their lives. On December 26, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor André Dumas as Righteous Among the Nations.

Léon Eyraud●, (alias “Père Noël”), Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title December 28, 1987, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 231-232; Hallie, 1979, pp. 178, 185, 188)

Madam Antoinette Eyraud●, wife of Léon Eyraud (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title December 28, 1987, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 231-232; Hallie, 1979, pp. 127, 177-179, 185, 199, 296)

Eyraud, Antoinette Eyraud, Léon File 3795 Léon Eyraud and his wife Antoinette were residents of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Early in the German occupation, Eyraud contacted the French underground leaders and was charged with organizing the clandestine political and military activity in the area. Through this work, Eyraud met many Jewish refugees and underground activists, including Oscar Rosowsky, a Jewish refugee in Le Chambon. Rosowsky and his parents had come to France from Berlin in 1933, and had settled in the southern city of Nice. In July 1942, Rosowsky’s father was arrested and deported to Drancy; from Drancy he was sent to Auschwitz, where he perished. On August 9, 1942, Oscar Rosowsky was arrested and interned in a labor camp for foreigners in Mandelieu, near Nice. One month later, he escaped from the camp and, with his mother, tried to cross the border into Switzerland. His mother was caught and sent to the camp in Rivesaltes. Although Rosowsky managed to cross the border, he was sent back by the Swiss authorities and had to return to Nice. He and two Protestants prepared forged papers with which his mother was able to leave the camp. Following the advice of his Protestant associates, Rosowsky returned to Le Chambon and joined an underground group that assisted refugees and operated a network that provided forged papers for all localities on the Vivarais-Lignon plateau. The group operated under Eyraud’s auspices, and his house was a meeting place for many partisans, underground activists, and Jewish refugees.

Eyraud and his wife took in refugees, saw to their needs, and supplied them and others with false papers. There were many Germans in Le Chambon, and underground activists and people who helped Jews were in considerable danger there. On December 28, 1987, Yad Vashem recognized Léon Eyraud and his wife Antoinette as Righteous Among the Nations.

Father Louis Favre+*, teacher, École Saint Francis, Ville La Grand, near Annemasse, CIMADE, helped smuggle Jews from his school on the Swiss-French border to the safety of Switzerland; arrested, tortured and murdered by Gestapo July 1944, (Haymann, 1984, pp. 129-131; Zuccotti, 1993, pp. 250-251)

Pastor André Gall●  and Fleur Gall●   (q.v.) in Florac and their two children to Pastor François Chazel● (q.v.) in Vebron, a village on the Cévennes plateau. (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE)

Gall, Pastor André Gall, Fleur File 2698m During the occupation, Protestant minister André Gall was pastor of Florac, a town in the département of Lozère. He and his wife Fleur risked their lives to hide Jewish refugees, attend to their needs, provide forged papers and ration cards, and arrange hiding places. In 1943, the Galls sheltered the painter Jacques Barison, who had fled from Gurs, and his wife Sonia. They escorted them to Montméjean, a small mountain village south of Florac, to the home of a teacher, Simone Serrière● (q.v.), who gave them refuge. That summer, local residents discovered the two Jewish fugitives. Fleur Gall sent them back to Florac, where her husband arranged another shelter for them. On December 22, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor André Gall and his wife Fleur as Righteous Among the Nations

Dr. Jean Guillaud, MD●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Marc Boegner Rescue Network, St. Jean-en-Royan area, Department of Drôme, Vecors Mountains, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title June 10, 1996, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 289-290)

Renée Guillaud●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), , Marc Boegner Rescue Network, wife of Dr. Jean Guillard, St. Jean-en-Royan area, Department of Drôme, Vecors Mountains, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title June 10, 1996, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003,pp. 289-290)

Guillaud, Jean Guillaud Renée File 7184 Jean Guillaud lived in Toulon and was a physician in the navy. In November 1942, after the fleet was sunk in the port of Toulon, Guillaud, his wife, and their infant daughter fled to St.-Jean-en-Royan (département of Drôme), in the Vercors Mountains. The area swarmed with Resistance fighters, who engaged the Germans in fierce combat; Guillaud did his share by providing the Resistance fighters with medical supplies. In July 1943, the Guillauds were contacted in the name of Pierre Marie Cardinal Gerlier of Lyons and were asked to hide young Jewish women in their home. The rescue of Jewish girls was initiated by the Jewish organization OSE, which availed itself of a network of French clerics. Thus Margo, a young Jewish woman of nineteen, was placed with the Guillauds. She had come from Germany in 1940 with her entire family, fifteen people, and they were all interned in the Gurs camp. The OSE managed to remove her in 1942, whereas the rest of her family was deported to Auschwitz, where all of them perished. The young woman was first sheltered in an institution belonging to the OSE and then reached the Guillauds’ home in 1943. The Guillauds welcomed her with warmth and affection. Dr. Guillaud provided her with forged identification papers, and his wife Renée taught her French. In return, she took care of their infant daughter. They also sheltered Erna Wasserman, who had undergone suffering much like Margot, and renamed her Elise, a less conspicuous name.

In the spring of 1944, American forces began to airlift weapons and food for the Resistance fighters in the Vercors Mountains. In June 1944, the Germans responded with heavy bombardments, including the Guillauds’ village. The Guillauds fled to an isolated farm about 1.5 kilometers from the village. Shortly afterward, German soldiers entered the village and massacred everyone suspected of hiding wanted underground fighters and Jews. After the liberation, the Guillaudsreturned to Toulon with their two wards, whom they continued to lodge without remuneration for several months. In January 1945, one left for Paris and the other for Great Britain. Eventually, both immigrated to the United States and continued to correspond with the family who had saved them, and whom they met again many years later in the United States. Margo named her daughter Danielle, after the Guillauds’ infant, for whom she had cared during the occupation. On June 10, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Jean and Renée Guillaud as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor Charles Guillon●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE). Mayor of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title May 5, 1991, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 291) On June 23, 1940, Guillon tendered his resignation as the mayor of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in the département of Haute-Loire.

Guillon, Pastor Charles File 4897 “France lost its honor when it signed the armistice agreement with Germany; now it has to fight for its soul.” The author of this statement, Pastor Charles Guillon, fought without military weapons but with spiritual prisoner of warer. On June 23, 1940, Guillon tendered his resignation as the mayor of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in the département of Haute-Loire. He explained that as secretary-general of a Protestant organization, his first commitment was to prisoners of war and refugees; this was inconsistent with serving as mayor in a regime collaborating with an occupier that was France’s enemy. Guillon labored on behalf of war refugees throughout the occupation and applied all his domestic and international religious contacts to obtain resources and funds to help camp internees of all faiths. After resigning from his position as mayor, Guillon worked for Protestant organizations. He was the world secretary of the YMCA, one of the four ranking members of an interdenominational ecumenical council based in Geneva, and was active in CIMADE, a French Protestant organization that established an agency which rescued Jewish children by taking them to Switzerland. On countless occasions and at great risk, Guillon crossed into France from Switzerland with large sums of money for the purchase of food parcels for camp internees and provisions for refugees. He also delivered intelligence information to freedom fighters in France and elsewhere.

Hundreds of Jews and non-Jews owe their lives and freedom to Guillon. His extraordinary personality and his ethical principles, which in the years preceding the occupation had made him the spiritual and moral leader of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, found practical expression during the harsh occupation years and attracted loyal followers. Le Chambon-sur-Lignon occupies a unique place in French history. Nowhere else were Jews saved so extensively and so generously. Pastor Guillon, himself, ran a networkthat rescued Jewish refugees from the Les Milles concentration camp near Aix-en-Provence; the refugees were then smuggled into Switzerland. The network was based at the YMCA office in Valence, in the département of Drôme. The Germans suspected Guillon, but he evaded them and went underground in the autumn of 1942. When France was liberated, Pastor Charles Guillon once more became mayor of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. On May 5, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor Charles Guillon as Righteous Among the Nations.

Jules Hébrard●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Lasalle, Department of Gard, France, Marc Boegner Rescue Network, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title December 9, 1996, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 300

Odette Hébrard●, wife of Jules Hébrard (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Lasalle, France, Department of Gard, Marc Boegner Rescue Network, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title December 9, 1996, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 300)

Hébrard, Jules Hébrard, Odette File 7424 Jules and Odette Hébrard● were a peasant couple who lived in Lasalle, a village in the mountainous département of Gard, most of whose residents were Protestants. In June 1942, the Reverend Saint-Martin, the Protestant minister in their village, who belonged to Pastor Marc Boegner’s● (q.v.) rescue network, asked them to hide four-year-old Anne-Gilberte Stemmer in their home. Anne-Gilberte’s parents, who were searching for refuge, wanted to put her in a secure place. The Hébrards, who were childless, “adopted” her and served as her “aunt and uncle” for two years. She went to school and church and acted like the other village girls. In late 1942, when Hébrard was named the garde champêtre (rural policeman) of Lasalle, the family, including young Anne-Gilberte, moved into the official residence of the village hall. Anne-Gilberte responded to the Hébrards’ devotion and called them Tata and Tonton. When her father came to reclaim her, she did not remember him and did not want to leave her adoptive parents, who also found the parting difficult. Anne-Gilberte’s relationship with the Hébrards was a lasting one, even after the Hébrards adopted two other children. On December 9, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Jules and Odette Hébrard as Righteous Among the Nations.

Théophile Hugon, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE) A retired lay teacher, in the Christian community of Vebron and Rousses was asked to give the departmental office a list of Jews who lived in his area of jurisdiction. He refused, simply declaring, “Look, here in Vébron we have a Catholic church and a Protestant church, so I can count the Catholics and Protestants. But we don’t have a synagogue.” See Pastor François Chazel (b. 1914) the pastor of Vebron and Rousses, two villages in the département of Lozère.

Marius Jolivet● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),  Father Marius Jolivet was the priest of the parish of Collonges-sous-Salève (Haute-Savoie). Guided Jews to Swiss border, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title, (Yad Vashem Archives; Nodot; Zuccotti, 1993, p. 250)

Jolivet, Father Marius File 3507 Father Marius Jolivet● was the priest of the parish of Collonges-sous-Salève (Haute-Savoie). His residence was very close to the Swiss border and in 1943-1944, scores of Jewish refugees became familiar with his house because it served as a transit point and temporary shelter. The refugees sometimes spent several days there, and at other times, they spent only a few hours, depending on the conditions for clandestine border crossing. Jolivet took care of all of them devotedly, zealously guarding the secret of their identity even from his closest friends. Jolivet inspected the border every day to discover possible crossing points, not resting until he had transferred everyone waiting to cross. The testimony of his friends in the Resistance, who collaborated with him to rescue Jews during the occupation, portrays a special human being who put the dictates of his conscience into practice. He was an upright and extremely modest man who devoted his entire being to helping others. One incident, which is engraved in the witnesses’ memories and involved additional rescuers, concerns the rescue of Eva Stein, a girl whose parents were Jews from Hamburg, Germany. They had gone into hiding in Lyons. In August 1942, at the height of anti-Jewish raids in Lyons, the Steins fled to a nearby village. Some members of the family escaped and reached a safe hiding place, but French gendarmes took the father and daughter into custody. The terrified father committed suicide, but the Resistance managed to free his young daughter from prison.

They first hid her in a pension in Crémieu (département of Isère) and, some time later, in an institution for young girls in Father Jolivet’s village. Several days later, in April 1943, Jolivet personally took Eva across the border to her mother, who, with the help of a young woman named Renée Miolane, had been taken to Switzerland with the other surviving family members. Among the Jews smuggled into Switzerlandwith Father Jolivet’s assistance was the composer Léon Algazi. Father Jolivet later fell ill and died, leaving behind a legacy of acts of kindness. On November 6, 1986, Yad Vashem recognized Father Marius Jolivet as Righteous Among the Nations.

Théo Klein, Leader, Sixth Division, French Jewish Scouts (EIF), Former President, CRIF

Théo Klein established a rescue network to take Jewish children to Switzerland.  He worked with CIMADE, Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues.

[Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), p. 147.  Rayski, Adam. The Choice of Jews Under Vichy, Between Submission and Resistance. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press and US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 2005), pp. 179, 231, 257-258.]

Joseph Lancon*+●, (“Jo”), layperson, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Village of Veigy-Foncenex, member of the Douvaine Rescue Network, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title May 16, 1989, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 337, 433)

Thérèse (Neury) Lancon●, layperson, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Village of Veigy-Foncenex, member of the Douvaine Rescue Network, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title May 16, 1989, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 337, 433)

Lançon, Joseph Lançon (Neury), Thérèse File 4239 Joseph Lançon, nicknamed “Jo,” was a Catholic widower who lived with his children on a modest farm in Veigy-Foncenex, a small village in the Alps, several hundred meters from the Swiss border. During the occupation, Lançon smuggled hundreds of refugees to Switzerland at the request of Abbé Jean-Joseph Rosay● (q.v.), the priest of his village and of the neighboring village, Douvaine. Lançon was assisted by his eldest daughter, Thérèse, and a young neighbor, François Périllat● (q.v.). Lançon was a member of a team known as “the Douvaine escape network,” which helped hundreds of Jewish refugee children cross the Swiss border to safety. One of the Jewish survivors, Jean Valbot, who met Lançon through Father Figuet, later described the border-running experience. At his meeting with Lançon, it was decided that Valbot and his family would cross the border that very night, September 9, 1943. Delay was impossible because control of the border was about to pass from Italian into German hands, and crossing would henceforth be much more difficult. Late that night, the Valbot family met with Lançon, who led them directly to the spot chosen for crossing the border, a hole in the barbed wire fence through which the refugees could cross into Switzerland. Thus the Valbots, like many other Jews, had their lives saved. Joseph Lançon performed these rescues out of pure altruism, with no thought of reward. Regrettably, however, Lançon paid dearly for his behavior.

On October 5, 1943, the Germans arrested his daughter Thérèse; she was miraculously freed after a few days. On February 10, 1944, François Perillat, Joseph Lançon, Father Rosay, and Father Figuet, activists in the smuggling network, were arrested after informers tipped off the Germans. All but Father Figuet were deported to a death camp, where they perished. Valbot later described them as “sublime examples of love, courage, and devotion.” On May 16, 1989, Yad Vashemrecognized Joseph Lançon and his daughter Thérèse Neury-Lançon as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor Liotard●, Belgrade  (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), see Emma● and Jean Voirin● (Gutman, 2003, p. 544)

Voirin, Emma Voirin●, Jean File 8374 Jean Voirin●, a clerk, lived in Génissiat (Ain) with his wife Emma, their four children aged thirteen to twenty, and a nephew whose father was prisoner of war in Germany. Devout Protestants, they never turned away Pastor Liotard from Bellegarde when he asked for food, clothing, and blankets for Jewish children sheltered by the CIMADE. One day in January 1943, the Pastor arrived accompanied by a twelve-year-old girl, Henni Krzuk, a Jewish refugee from Germany whom the CIMADE had been able to remove from the Rivesaltes camp. “Poor kid, she was wondering where she had landed: a family of unknown people, new faces,” wrote Renée, the Voisin daughter who was thirteen at the time. For her parents however, “Another child, that was normal: they had a heart as big as a mountain, especially when children were concerned.” Though very shy, Henni adjusted quickly to her new surroundings. Jean Voisin had a pleasant garden and raised hens and rabbits. The mayor, the gendarmes and the schoolteachers all helped protect the girl, who passed her final elementary school examinations easily. Three times, however, Jean Voirin had to deal with a couple of informers who were accusing him – quite rightly – of helping the underground. Each time he managed to convince them they were wrong. Henni was fortunate. She found her family again after the liberation. But the Voirin children always considered her as their little sister. On February 17, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Jean and Emma Voirin as Righteous Among the Nations.

Suzanne Loiseau-Chevalley● (b. 1918) (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE). Was active in the Protestant refugee aid organization CIMADE and was a close associate of the secretary general Madeleine Barot*.(Fabre, 1970; Nodot, 1978; Priacel-Pittet (Tatchou) report; Suzanne Loiseu report; Zucotti, 1993, pp. 248, 355n3)

Loiseau-Chevalley, Suzanne Suzanne Loiseau-Chevalley (b. 1918) was active in the Protestant refugee aid organization CIMADE and was a close associate of the secretary general Madeleine Barot●. Barot was the first one to send non-Jewish student volunteers to live with the Jews in the internment camps in southern France and provide them with food, first aid, and emotional support. Suzanne joined one of the groups of CIMADE in February 1942 and worked in the Brens camp, and others, including Naillat, and Saint-Sulpice. She took an active part in smuggling Jewish refugees to Spain, including supplying them with false documents obtained from various government offices. In January 1943, Suzanne joined the Swiss border smuggling network in Douvaine (Haute-Savoie) headed by the priest Jean-Joseph Rosay●, and staffed by Catholic priests, Protestant clergymen, and lay people from villages and towns in the border area. Suzanne’s job was to accompany young children to the homes of willing hosts and when the time came, to smuggle them across the border into Switzerland. In February 1944, while smuggling Jewish children through the difficult mountainous terrain to Switzerland, Suzanne fell from a cliff and was badly injured. Her friends smuggled her to Switzerland and had her hospitalized. Thus came to an end her efforts as a smuggler. Suzanne Loiseau-Chevalley carried out her dangerous rescue missions as a labor of love, without remuneration, prompted by her strong religious beliefs and humanitarian ideals.

On July 18, 2006, Yad Vashem recognized Suzanne Loiseau-Chevalley as Righteous Among the Nations.

Simone Mairesse●, Mazet-Saint-Voy, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Service André, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title December 26, 1988 (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 369-370)

Mairesse, Simone File 4012 Simone Mairesse was only thirty years old and seven months pregnant when her husband, an officer in the French forces, died in the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940. Mairesse lived in Mazet-Saint-Voy, about six kilometers from Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. She shared her modest home with her mother, two sisters, a niece, and her infant daughter, born two months after her husband’s death. Although fate had treated her harshly, Mairesse became involved in rescuing Jewish refugees. She approached Pastor André Trocmé● (q.v.), the spiritual leader of Le Chambon. He put her in charge of coordinating the reception and hiding places of Jewish refugees, which she did from November 1942 until the liberation of France, at constant risk to her life and the lives of her family. Her familiarity with the area and its inhabitants was a great asset. Through her efforts, hundreds of Jews were placed with host families, thus saving their lives. Eventually Mairesse became a liaison for the Jewish underground organization Service André, which was especially active in the vicinity of Le Chambon. Claude Spiéro, a Jew who was active in Service André, later recounted that the economic aid Mairesse arranged, and the regular transfer of funds she obtained from a support organization, enabled his mother and him to survive in their hiding place in the Le Chambon area. Apart from material aid, Mairesse also warned refugees and resisters of impending raids by the French militia or the Germans.

On December 26, 1988, Yad Vashem recognized Simone Mairesse as Righteous Among the Nations.

Henri Manen●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), French, chaplain, Les Milles French concentration camp, Aix-en-Provence, France, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title March 20, 1986, (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, pp. 370-371)

Alice Manen●, CIMADE, wife of Henri Manen, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title March 20, 1986, (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, pp. 370-371)

Manen, Alice Manen, Pastor Henri File 3369 Reverend Manen was the pastor of the Protestant community of Aix-en-Provence. Hence, he was allowed free access to the Les Milles camp near the city in order to provide religious services for Protestant internees. He took advantage of this to remove many Jews by giving them false papers or baptism certificates. Utilizing his contacts in the government, the pastor managed to remove the names of Jewish invalids and veterans from the lists of people to be deported. Defying the risks that he ran, Henri Manen removed seventy-two children and eight adults from the camp. He and his wife Alice sheltered many of them in their home, while they were waiting to find a place of refuge. They sent several on to Pastor Donadille● (q.v.), who found them hiding places in the Plâteau Cévenol. The Ahfeld family, who had been hiding in Aix-en-Provence, had to flee when the police found their hiding place. Henri Manen took them in for several days before taking them personally to the Donadilles in St.-Privat-de-Vallongues, a village in the département of Lozère, where they lived until the liberation. In his diary, Pastor Manen expressed his anger and helplessness before the atrocities committed in the Les Milles camp between August 6 and September 10, 1942. Entire families, including young children, were packed into cattle cars and deported. On March 20, 1986, Yad Vashem recognized Henri and Alice Manen as Righteous Among the Nations.

Jacqueline Martin● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), wife of Pastor Jacques Martin, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title September 6, 1989, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 378-379)

Pastor Jacques Martin● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), awarded Righteous Among the Nations title September 6, 1989, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 378-379)

Martin, Jacqueline Martin●, Pastor Jacques File 8122 The Protestant cleric Jacques Martin served in a congregation in Ganges (Herault). Before the war, Martin refused to do military service for reasons of conscience and was in prison for about a year. A military physician arranged his discharge in 1939 because of his poor health, but in accordance with its policy toward conscientious objectors, the Church would not assign him to a parish. He accepted the post of temporary pastor, without pay, in Ganges (Hérault). To support his family, Martin worked at a large needlework factory that turned out silk stockings. He and his wife joined CIMADE and collaborated with Madeleine Barot (q.v.), who placed them in touch with Jews who had been interned at Gurs. The Martins sent the inmates food parcels and helped several of them obtain their release and emigrate to destinations overseas. When arrests of Jews in the southern zone began, Pastor Martin and his wife played a central and active role in rescuing large numbers of Jews. They concealed Jews in their home for short periods while seeking permanent hideouts for them, usually with members of their congregation. Martin also forged identification cards, gave them to Jews in need, and participated in a network that filched ration cards and distributed them to sequestered Jews. The Martins concealed Jacques’ brother-in-law, Pastor André Trocmé● (q.v.), in their family home in Perdyer (Drôme). On June 22, 1944, the militia arrested Martin and had him imprisoned in Montpellier, on suspicion of activity in the Resistance.

In one of the strangest transactions of this troubled period, the Resistance negotiated his release in return for one thousand sheep, and Martin was freed three days before the liberation. After the liberation, the French general staff awarded Jacques Martin, the erstwhile conscientious objector, the esteemed Croix de Guerre for his feats “on behalf of the victims of enemy actions.” On June 22, 1998, YadVashem recognized Jacques and Jacqueline Martin as Righteous Among the Nations.

Dr. Heinrich Mayer (MD), CIMADE, nurse, Swiss Aid, helped organize food supplies in French concentration camps, worked with CIMADE, (Fabre, 1970, p. 66)

Hubert Meyer● (b. 1915) (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), ran a home for refugees under the auspices of CIMADE, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title May 7, 1989, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 396-397)

Meyer, Hubert File 4159 During the occupation, Hubert Meyer (b. 1915) ran a home for refugees under the auspices of CIMADE, a Protestant charitable organization. The institution, known as Coteau Fleuri and located in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (département of Haute-Loire), was founded in April 1942 to care for ill prisoners who had been rescued from the camps at Gurs and Rivesaltes. Jean Hilbrand and his wife Hilde were interned in Gurs from December 1940 to July 1942. After they were rescued, they were accommodated in Meyer’s institution and Hilde became part of the administrative staff. Coteau Fleuri admitted, housed, and fed several dozen Jews, ranging in age from three to eighty-five. A large roundup of Jews took place in Le Chambon in August 1942. Meyer was warned in advance and sent some of the Jews he was sheltering to the surrounding forest and placed others with peasants in nearby villages. When the gendarmes came searching for them, Meyer denied knowing their whereabouts. After the roundup, the gendarmes returned to try and track down the escapees. As it was no longer possible to run the home, it was disbanded. Meyer became director of a similar home, Maison des Roches. The Hilbrands moved with him, and Hilde performed various maintenance chores. In the spring of 1943, as mobilizations for forced labor in Germany escalated, Meyer was inducted but managed to escape. He joined the Maquis and was wanted as a deserter until the end of the occupation.

On May 7, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Hubert Meyer as Righteous Among the Nations

Pastor (Reverend) André Morel●+, chaplain, Gurs French detention camp (1941-1942), Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, member of Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE, OSE, Marc Boegner Rescue Network, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title September 23, 1990, (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970, pp. 26, 66; Gutman, 2003, p. 402; Halle, 1979) see also Andre Chouraqui

Morel, Pastor André File 1288 Reverend André Morel was a Protestant minister who worked for CIMADE, a Protestant aid organization headed by Marc Bogner● (q.v.) and Madeleine Barot● (q.v.). In 1941-1942, Morel was active in the camp at Gurs. He provided Jewish inmates with false baptismal certificates, assisted in rescue operations, and participated in attempts to improve the prisoners’ living conditions.

In 1942, CIMADE sent Morel to help smuggle Jews into Switzerland, a highly risky venture because of the difficult mountainous terrain and the many French soldiers who patrolled the area regularly to capture fleeing Jews and other opponents of the regime. Morel helped dozens of Jews run the border and neither sought nor received any remuneration. He was then transferred to Le Chambon sur Lignon (Haute Loire), where he operated in 1943-1944. Le Chambon and the surrounding villages were renowned for their active assistance in hiding Jews. Morel, in coordination with the Jewish organization OSE, located villagers willing to shelter Jews. André Chouraqui, coordinator of the local OSE team, later described Morel’s activities. Chouraqui entrusted Morel with twenty Jewish children, whom he saved by placing them in safe havens with village families. At one point, the French gendarmerie arrested and prosecuted Morel for smuggling Jews into Switzerland. Morel was convicted and fined 4,000 French francs, beyond the means of the young clergyman. Chouraqui came to his aid.

He appealed to the Jews of the region, who contributed willingly. On September 25, 1990, Yad Vashem recognized André Morel as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pierre Ogier● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Marc Boegner Rescue Network Lyons, France, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title March 13, 1997, (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, pp. 413-414)

Henriette Ogier● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Marc Boegner Rescue Network, layperson, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title May 6, 1989, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 337)

(Gutman, 2003)

Ogier, Henriette Ogier●, Pierre Pierre and Henriette Ogier● lived in Lyons with their two children. On the recommendation of a priest who was following the directives of Cardinal Gerlier (q.v.), they hired a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl as a housekeeper. Liselotte Boettigheimer had been deported from Germany in the summer of 1940 and interned in the Gurs camp. Six months later, she had been transferred to Rivesaltes. Early in the summer of 1942, Liselotte and five other young Jews were removed from the camp by the Quakers and placed in an OSE home in Vic sur Cère (Cantal). As the dangers increased, the young people were dispersed in 1943 and placed with Christian families in Lyons under the auspices of Cardinal Gerlier. The OSE staff gave Liselotte forged identification papers in the name of Lucienne Berger, born in Colmar, Alsace (to explain her strong German accent). She worked for the Ogiers until the liberation. Her employers knew that she was Jewish but treated her with respect and compassion. Fortunately, she was reunited with her parents after the war and went to live in South Africa. In 1994, she returned to France and met Dr. Maurice Ogier, the son of her rescuers, a very emotional encounter. On March 13, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Pierre and Henriette Ogier as Righteous Among the Nations. File 7529

François Périllat●+*, layperson (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Marc Boegner Rescue Network, layperson, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title May 6, 1989, (Gutman, 2003, p. 337; Yad Vashem Archives) see Joseph Lançon and Jean-Joseph Rosay

Périllat, François File 4239a During the occupation, François Périllat of the village of Veigy-Foncenex, together with Joseph Lançon● (q.v.), a farmer and his employer, smuggled hundreds of Jews to Switzerland. Périllat was a central figure in the network of border runners, which included clergymen, underground operatives, and local residents. The fugitives turned first to the clergy, particularly Father Jean-Joseph Rosay● (q.v.), the priest of Douvaine, who sent them to Périllat and his comrades. These local people exploited their familiarity with the terrain and considerable experience to smuggle Jews over the border in the safest possible way. Périllat’s daring operations saved the lives of hundreds of Jews, but not his own. The Germans occupied this area on September 9, 1943, and Périllat’s activities were discovered. He, Lançon and Rosay were arrested and deported to concentration camps in the east. Périllat was shuttled from one camp to another and forced to do backbreaking work, until he died of exhaustion on December 13, 1944, in the Hersbrueck camp in Bavaria. On May 16, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized François Périllat as Righteous Among the Nations.

Georges Perrod, school principal see Father Jean Joseph Rosay●, Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; (CIMADE), Douvaine Rescue/Escape Network, Douvaine, France, school principal, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title October 17, 1994, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003)

At Father Jean Joseph Rosay’s● request, Georges Perrod● (q.v.), principal of the government school in Douvaine, provided Jewish children with temporary hiding places while preparing to cross the border.

Maria Perrod●, wife of Georges Perrod, CIMADE, Douvaine Rescue/Escape Network, Douvaine, France, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title October 17, 1994, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003)

Mireille Philip● was active in the Protestant rescue organization CIMADE. Départment of Haute-Savoie, CIMADE, smuggled Jews from Le Chambon to Switzerland, she worked with Father Camille Folliet, Father Jean Rosay, Pierre Piton, Albert Roux, Mme. Roux, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title March 18, 1976, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 439, 485)

Philip, Mireille File 1026 Mireille Philip was active in the Protestant rescue organization CIMADE. Her husband, Socialist leader André Philip, had left occupied France in 1940 and joined General de Gaulle. Mireille assumed responsibility for leading small groups of young Jews from the town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon to the Swiss border, from where they were smuggled into Switzerland. Although aware of the risks of these operations, she worked energetically, instilled confidence in the youth, and recruited additional volunteers for work in rescuing Jews. CIMADE obtained Swiss entry visas for all Jews whom its agents delivered across the border. To obtain the visas, lists had to be taken to Switzerland with extreme precautions. For that purpose, Mireille Philip sometimes went to Geneva on a locomotive, disguised as a railroad mechanic. Sometimes it was necessary to wait several days for the visas, and Philip would have to hide her Jews in the département of Haute-Savoie, near the border. She was assisted by Catholic priests and institutions, including Father Camille Folliet● (q.v.) of Annecy and Father Jean Rosay● (q.v.) of the town of Douvaine. In January 1943, Mireille Philip turned over her duties in CIMADE to Pierre Piton● (q.v.) and joined the Resistance. After the war, she described her experiences in the rescue operations: “By helping them, we received more than we gave. After all, it was so convenient to be in our situation and not in theirs. For we had chosen our role, which, in my opinion, was a normal situation that discriminated in our favor.”

On March 18, 1976, Yad Vashem recognized Mireille Philip as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pierre Piton● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Collège Chévenol, helped smuggle Jews to Switzerland, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title May 16, 1989, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 439)

Piton, Pierre File 4247 Pierre Piton was born in 1925 in Le Havre. His father was a ship’s captain and his mother was a teacher. In 1941, Piton ran away from home to escape his violent father. The Protestant Scout movement, the Eclaireurs Unionists, became his second family. When he reached Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, Pastor Edouard Theis● (q.v.) hired him as a dormitory counselor at the Collège Cévenol. In August 1942, the town’s Protestant leadership asked Piton to escort the Jewish refugees streaming into Le Chambon to the families who were sheltering them. In early 1943, Mireille Philip● (q.v.) recruited Piton to guide small groups of Jews who were being smuggled into Switzerland. Piton, wearing a scout uniform, traveled by train to the border village of Collonges-sous-Salève; passing through the stations of Lyons, St.-Etienne, and Annecy. Wherever he changed trains, he was closely followed by three Jews who had left Le Chambon early that morning. At eleven a.m. the next day, they took a bus from Annecy to Collonges-sous-Salève; at sundown they were met by the Catholic priest Marius Jolivet (q.v.). Father Jolivet monitored the border guards’ patrol movements, and told them when to move toward the barbed-wire fence. Piton lifted the wire, allowing the refugees to crawl to the other side. After twenty successful operations, an Italian border patrol caught Piton and three Jews and handed them over to French gendarmes, who imprisoned them in Grenoble. They were released three months later, and a police officer explained to Piton, “I know everything you did.

Geneviève Priacel-Pittet●  (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), (YV M31/4872) (Folliet; Fabre, 1970; Lazare; Loiseau-Chevally Report; Priacel-Pittet (Tatchau) Report; Zuccotti, 1993, p. 248)

Pittet-Priacel, Geneviève File 5960 In 1940, the Veil family, a couple with a son Antoine, and three daughters, found sanctuary in Grenoble, capital of the département of Isère. The oldest daughter moved to Geneva after completing studies in theology. During her studies, she became friendly with Geneviève Pittet, a Protestant whose worldview prompted her, even before the occupation, to join the Protestant refugee-assistance organization, CIMADE. In late 1943, the Veils contacted Pittet and asked her help in smuggling their son Antoine across the Swiss border. The parents feared for Antoine’s fate because, despite his youth, he was active in the Resistance, and they thought he would be safer in Switzerland since his sister was a Swiss resident. Pittet accepted the challenge and, on Christmas eve 1943, escorted Antoine to St.-Julien, seven kilometers south of Geneva. From there, the two walked across the border. Swiss gendarmes drove Antoine to a transit camp, and from there, he reached his sister in Geneva. In February 1944, after Antoine’s sister was arrested in Grenoble, the parents and the youngest sister also decided to cross into Switzerland. Pittet smuggled them across the way she had smuggled Antoine several weeks earlier. By virtue of Pittet’s courage and resolve, Antoine’s parents and youngest sister also reached sanctuary and survived the war. On December 30, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Geneviève Pittet-Priacel as Righteous Among the Nations.

Father Emile Planckaert●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE)

The survivors recalled Devaux, who collaborated in these operations with Father Emile Planckaert● (q.v.), for his humanitarian acts and his personal devotion to the Jewish children who lost at the same time both their families and their homes. see Father Théomir Devaux● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),

Pastor Jacques Rennes, CIMADE, chaplain, French concentration camps, helped prisoners in camps, (Fabre, 1970, pp. 67-68).

General Pierre Robert de Saint-Vincent●, Military Governor of Lyon, France, Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; (CIMADE), member Secret Army, Christian Friendship and Marc Boegner● Rescue Network awarded Righteous Among the Nations title, by Yad Vashem (Gutman, 2003, pp. 472-473; Yad Vashem Archives)

Robert de Saint-Vincent, General Pierre File 3547 In 1942, General Pierre Robert de Saint-Vincent was the military governor of Lyons. Since 1941, he had also been among the patrons of the Amitié Chrétienne organization, established in Lyons to assist Jews suffering under the Vichy regime. The organization’s highly placed supporters included Cardinal Pierre Marie Gerlier● (q.v.) and Pastor Marc Boegner (q.v.). In 1942, Saint-Vincent was active in the anti-German underground Armée Secrète and helped hide General Giraud, until he could flee to northern Africa. General Giraud had escaped German captivity and was being sought by the Vichy authorities for treason. On August 29, 1942, Saint-Vincent was instructed to have a company of soldiers under his command maintain order at the Perrache-Lyons railroad station while a group of 550 Jews was placed aboard a deportation train to Drancy, and from there to the east. Saint-Vincent proudly refused to follow the order, asserting that his troops would never participate in such an action. His refusal delayed the operation for 24 hours or more, during which time some of those marked for deportation fled and survived. Due to his action, the Vichy government decided summarily to suspend General de Saint-Vincent from all his army responsibilities. In November 1942, when the Germans occupied the southern zone, he had to hide in order to escape them. Using a forged identity, he found hiding places in Grenoble and later in Nice. Thus, at personal risk throughout, he placed the values of human dignity and justice above fealty to his superiors’ orders.

On June 24, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Pierre Robert de Saint-Vincent as Righteous Among the Nations.

Father Jean Rosay●+*, Douvaine (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),  Douvaine Escape/Rescue Network, Douvaine, Department of Haute-Savoie, France, died in Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Germany, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title January 23, 1991. (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 337, 433, 439, 480; Zuccotti, 1993, pp. 249, 356n4; Roland Birge testimony, pp. 31-33, 32, Thérèse Neury testimony, pp. 34-35, and Suzanne Loiseau testimony, pp. 34-35, in “Résistance non violente: La filière de Douvaine—l’Abbé Jean Rosay, Joseph Lancon, François Perillat—morts en deportation,” Douvaine, Haute-Savoie, unpublished brochure, May 24, 1987)

Rosay, Father Jean-Joseph File 3580 Father Jean-Joseph Rosay●, the priest of Douvaine, near the Swiss border in the département of Haute-Savoie, worked with all his power to help Jews cross the border illegally. For this purpose he created an impressive network staffed by Catholic priests, Protestant clergymen, and lay people from villages and towns in the border area. Rosay used his home as a transit station for Jewish children until they could safely run the border. The Jewish organization OSE and the Protestant organization CIMADE referred Jewish children to Rosay. At Father Rosay’s request, Georges Perrod● (q.v.), principal of the government school in Douvaine, provided Jewish children with temporary hiding places while preparing to cross the border. On February 10, 1944, the Gestapo arrested Father Rosay and two members of his congregation, Joseph Lançon● (q.v.) and François Périllat● (q.v.), who had served as volunteer border guides. All three were deported to Auschwitz. Father Rosay was taken to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945, and died there several days before the British liberated the camp. Joseph Lançon and François Périllat perished as well. On March 19, 1987, Yad Vashem recognized Father Jean-Joseph Rosay as Righteous Among the Nations.

Albert Roux●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, Children’s Aid Rescue Society, Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; (OSE) awarded Righteous Among the Nations title January 18, 1990, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 231, 439)

Eugenie Roux●, wife of Albert Roux (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, worked with Children’s Aid Rescue Society, Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE,  awarded Righteous Among the Nations title January 18, 1990, (Yad Vashem Archives; (Gutman, 2003, p. 231, 439)

Roux, Albert Roux, Eugénie File 4502 Albert Roux owned a grocery store in Chaumargeais, in the département of Haute-Loire near Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. André Chouraqui, born in 1917, lived in Chaumargeais from the summer of 1942 and was a liaison for the OSE, a Jewish organization that sheltered children. Chouraqui lived across the street from Roux’s grocery store and established a center to rescue children in the Haute-Loire region. Roux and his wife allowed the OSE to transmit urgent messages with his telephone, the only one in the area. They warned OSE agents of French militia movements and the unexpected arrival of German policemen. They also provided members of the underground with food from their store, even though food was rationed and in extremely short supply. Roux and his wife also made contacts with the underground and found peasants willing to hide Jewish children and members of the underground in their homes, often rising in the middle of a snowy night to take children from the railroad station to their new hiding places. In response to information from Mireille Philip (q.v.), the Rouxes warned André Chouraqui that a Gestapo agent was due to visit the area in order to arrest and deport him and his wife. The warning enabled the Chouraquis to move to the hiding place they had prepared. Albert Roux and his wife performed their acts of rescue with clear awareness of the dangers.. On January 8, 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Albert Roux and his wife as Righteous Among the Nations.

Elie and Marie Russier● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE). Owned a family pension in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (Haute-Loire) known as Le Côteau Fleuri. Awarded Righteous Among the Nations title December 26, 1988, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 491)

Russier, Elie Russier, Marie Boît, Lily (Russier) File 4011 Elie and Marie Russier owned a family pension in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (Haute-Loire) known as Le Côteau Fleuri. They and their daughter Lily (whose married name was Lily Boît) lived in a house attached to this building with its own private entrance. During the occupation, the Russiers made the building available to the Protestant charitable organization CIMADE. That organization worked in the detention camps in the southwest of France where the Vichy regime had interned tens of thousands of Jewish refugees. The CIMADE volunteers tried to ease their suffering and occasionally succeeded in obtaining “vacations” for dozens of Jewish detainees, mainly eldery people. More than eighty of them, removed from the Gurs and Rivesaltes camps, were sheltered in Le Couteau Fleuri. In 1942, the gendarmerie received the order to transport “non-liberable” people back to the detention camps in preparation for their deportation. One of these, Hilda Hillebrand, the youngest resident of Le Coteau Fleuri at that time, told how the Russiers had prepared shelter with the people of Chambon for some of the inmates, and in the forests for others, for the duration of the emergency. While there was hardly any risk of denunciation in that town, which was so hospitable to the Jews, Lilly Russier and her parents risked grave penalties from the authorities. When the gendarmes found their pension vacant, the Russiers put them off with all sorts of stories.

After the war, Hilda Hillebrand and several of her Jewish friends, who had been saved in the Coteau Fleuri, kept up friendly relations with the Russiers and their daughter Lily, Mme Boît. On December 26, 1988, Yad Vashem recognized Elie and Marie Russier and daughter Lily Boît as Righteous Among the Nations

Pastor Hans Schaffert● (Swiss) (Gurs Camp), (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE),

Schaffert, Hans (Reverend) Reverend Hans Schaffert was a Swiss clergyman who worked under the auspices of Cimade, a Protestant aid organization, in the Gurs concentration camp in France in 1942. His actions on behalf of the inmates derived from his deep religious belief. His feelings of solidarity towards the Jews started during the days he studied theology with Prof. Karl Barth in Basel. Schaffert testified that he arrived in Gurs as a protestant minister and a social worker and stayed for six months. In this detention camp there was also a small Protestant community of converted Jews. One day, in August 1942, he heard that the next day a deportation would take place. He tried to save some Jews by talking to the camp’s commander and other dignitaries of the church outside the camp about what was planned – but as soon as he realized that his attempts were unsuccessful, he managed to give several detained Jews some money, convincing them to run away, either to Spain or to Switzerland. He personally escorted several prisoners close to the Spanish border. Schaffert also cooperated with various welfare institutions operating in Gurs in supplying the deportees with food parcels. From 1943-1945, Schaffert acted as a representative of the refugees in Switzerland. In Lille, where Schaffert lived after 1945, he was among the founders of an association for friendship between Jews and Christians. On April 4, 1967, Yad Vashem recognized Reverend Hans Schaffert as Righteous Among the Nations.

Reverend Saint-Martin, Pastor Marc Boegner Rescue Network, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), hid Jew in home of Jules Hébard and his wife, Odette Hébard, (Gutman, 2003, p. 300)

Jacques Saussine*, CIMADE, Camp Récébédou, French detention camp, died of appendicitis in Récébédou, (Fabre, 1970, p. 30)

Pastor Hans Schaffert (Swiss), CIMADE, Gurs Camp

Minister Elizabeth Schmidt, CIMADE, Gurs French detention camp, contracted typhoid in Gurs, (Fabre, 1970, pp. 30, 73-74)

Claude Spiéro, Claude Spiéro, a Jew who was active in Service André,

Gabriel and Juliette Soulier had operated a small farm in a place known as La Bouscarasse in Lasalle (Gard), (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), 

Soulier, Gabriel Soulier, Juliette Gabriel and Juliette Soulier had an isolated farm in a place known as La Bouscarasse in Lasalle (Gard), and lived modestly on what the farm produced. Despite their limited means, from February 1943 to February 1944 they accommodated a 17-year-old Jewish boy named Jacques Rojtenberg. Jacques, his three brothers and his parents had fled from Paris to Nîmes after the defeat. In 1942, with the worsening of the situation for Jews, the Rojtenbergs looked for help from CIMADE, a Protestant refuge aid organization. The two older brothers were sent to Chambon-sur-Lignon and from there transferred to Switzerland. Jacques, his younger brother Roger and their parents were sent to the Lozère, where they were moved from one farm to the next until they met Pastor Edgard Wasserfallen* in Lasalle. Jacques was virtually adopted by the Souliers, who treated him as their own son. Due to limited space, Jacques shared a bed with their 16-year-old son Georges. On Christmas in 1943, when a denunciation was feared, Gabriel found him a temporary hiding place in Vigan, 60 kilometers away. He traveled there with him on bicycle, in spite of the police checkpoints. Once the danger had passed, Jacques was able to return to La Bouscarasse. The Souliers never accepted the least compensation for their help. On the contrary, when Jacques was forced to leave the farm once and for all, following a second denunciation, Gabriel stuffed 200 francs in his pocket, despite his protests.

Gabriel and Juliette’s grown daughter Jeanette, who was already married, had Roger at her home in Calviac, while his parents stayed with other members of the Soulier family. On August 13, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Gabriel and Juliette Soulier as Righteous Among the Nations.

Jean Marie Soutou●, Lyon area, helped found Christian Friendship, (Amitié Chrétienne) with Father Pierre Chaillet in 1941, arrested with Chaillet for helping Jews, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Marc Boegner Rescue Network. Awarded Righteous Among the Nations title March 22, 1994, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 268, 506)

Soutou, Jean-Marie File 5890 Jean-Marie Soutou was a young civil servant who moved to Lyons after fleeing occupied Paris. He aligned himself with the Catholic opponents of the Vichy regime, led by Father Pierre Chaillet● (q.v.). In 1941, Soutou and Chaillet took part in establishing the Amitié Chrétienne organization to defend victims of the Vichy regime and the occupation authorities. Soutou produced forged papers for Jews and participated in missions to smuggle Jews into Switzerland and hide Jewish children. He was the one who usually received the Jews who came to the Amitié Chrétienne office in downtown Lyons to obtain forged papers and obtain material support. On January 27, 1943, the Gestapo broke into the organization’s offices and arrested everyone, including Father Chaillet and Soutou. They were interrogated on suspicion of providing refuge to wanted Jews. Chaillet extricated himself a few hours later, but Soutou was incarcerated for further interrogation. Thanks to the intervention of Cardinal Gerlier● (q.v.), Soutou was released after three weeks of confinement. His comrades, aware that his life was in danger, immediately sent him across the Swiss border. After the war, Soutou held various high-ranking diplomatic positions and chaired the French Red Cross (CRF). On March 22, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Jean-Marie Soutou as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor Pierre Toureille●, CIMADE, served as chaplain to prisoners in French concentration camps, appointed by Pastor Marc Boegner, deputy chairman Nimes Committee (Comité de Nîmes), awarded Righteous Among the Nations title November 6, 1973, (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970, p. 44; Gutman, 2003, p. 525)

Toureille●, Pastor Pierre Charles File 813 During the occupation, the French clergyman Pierre Charles Toureille was posted to southern France as the chief minister of foreign Protestant refugees. Concurrently, he served as the deputy chairman of the Comité de Nîmes, a committee appointed by the Vichy government to coordinate the work of French and foreign humanitarian organizations and to advise the Government on foreign refugees, primarily Jews. Pastor Toureille helped many Jews. This assistance was necessarily secret and undocumented, so we know only of cases that came to light after the war. One of the people assisted by Toureille was Robert Papst, a Hungarian-born Jew who in 1942 had married a Protestant woman in France with Swiss nationality. He provided Robert Papst with a forged identification card in the name of Parlier and hired him as a member of his office staff in Lunel. In the course of 1943-1944, Gestapo agents visited the office to investigate the activities of the clergyman and his staff. Papst’s forged papers spared him from arrest, but Pastor Toureille was interrogated seven times and tortured by the Gestapo on suspicion of aiding Jews. The Sperbers were another Jewish couple whose lives were saved by virtue of Toureille’s assistance. Toureille attested falsely that they were Protestants and helped them find refuge in an abandoned house in the Alps in the département of Isère. In June 1943, when the Sperbers had a son, the pastor helped them cope with their desperate financial circumstances by regularly providing small sums of money and provisions.

On November 6, 1973, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor Pierre Charles Toureille as Righteous Among the Nations.

Magda Trocmé●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Le Chambon. Awarded Righteous Among the Nations title January 5, 1971, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 529-530; Hallie, 1979, pp. 19-21, 64-67, 149-150, 152-156, 161-163, 195-196, 259, 265; Zuccotti, 1993, p. 229)

Pastor André Pascal Trocmé● (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Le Chambon. Awarded Righteous Among the Nations title January 5, 1971, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 529-530; Hallie, 1979, pp. 19-21, 64-67, 149-150, 152-156, 161-163, 195-196, 259, 265; Zuccotti, 1993, p. 229)

Trocmé, Pastor André Trocmé, Magda File 612 In the early 1930s, when Charles Guillon*, pastor of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in the département of Haute-Loire, was elected mayor of the town, André Trocmé took over as pastor of the congregation. On June 23, 1940, after the armistice, Trocmé and his colleague, Edward Theis*, urged his congregants to resist using “the weapons of the spirit.” In so doing, they followed in the footsteps of Guillon. This policy and the high-mindedness of many congregants made Le Chambon and the surrounding villages a unique refuge in France, where many hundreds of Jews, children and entire families, survived the war. Magda, Trocmé’s wife, was actively involved in creating and maintaining this haven. With others, she located families willing to accommodate Jewish refugees and prepared the town’s many boarding schools for increased enrollment. Reverends Trocmé and Theis vigorously encouraged all these endeavors, which frustrated the regime’s anti-Jewish policies. Neither pressure from the authorities nor searches by security agents diminished the resolve of the Trocmés and their team, and their activity did not cease. On August 15, 1942, Trocmé vehemently articulated his opinions to Georges Lamirand, the Vichy Minister for Youth, on an official visit to the town. Several days later, gendarmes moved into Le Chambon to “purge” the town of its foregin alien residents. On August 30, the suspense peaked. Rumor had it that the pastor was about to be arrested.

In his overflowing church, Trocmé urged the congregants to “do the will of God, not of men” and stressed the importance of fulfilling the commandment in Deuteronomy 19:2-10 concerning sheltering the persecuted. There were no arrests that day, and the gendarmes were withdrawn from the town several days later, their mission an utter failure. In February 1943, Trocmé and two colleagues, Reverend Edouard Theis and the teacher Roger Darcissac*, were arrested and interned at the Saint-Pauld’Eyjeaux camp near Limoges. They were held for three weeks, while the camp commander tried to pressure the pastors to sign a commitment to obey, but they did not succumb to the pressure. Upon their release, Theis joined the CIMADE and participated in the escape network to Switzerland. Trocmé, who was not in the best of health, joined the underground, and was able to keep the safe haven in Le Chambon and its vicinity operating smoothly. On January 5, 1971, Yad Vashem recognized the Reverend André Trocmé and on May 14, 1984 his wife, Magda, as Righteous Among the Nations.

Daniel Trocmé●* (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, head of Maison des Roches (children’s home), awarded Righteous Among the Nations title March 18, 1976, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, pp. 529-530; Hallie, 1979, pp. 168, 181, 205-217, 219, 221, 247, 259; Zuccotti, 1993, p. 230)

Trocmé, Daniel File 1037 Daniel Trocmé was born in 1912. He taught physics, chemistry and natural sciences at Les Roches, an old, prestigious Protestant boarding school in Verneuil, in the département of Eure. In 1941, his uncle, Pastor André Trocmé (recognized as Righteous in 1971), asked him to become the principal of Les Grillons, a boarding school for Jewish refugee children established by the American Friends Service Committee (the Quakers), in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. A determined and stern-looking man, Daniel Trocmé had sublimely humane traits. Jonathan Gali, who at age sixteen found shelter and work at Les Grillons, recalls a fascinating and profoundly cultivated person. “Daniel Trocmé never thought of himself. He was deeply conscientious. At night you might find the director working by a dim nightlight, repairing children’s shoes with bits of rubber tire". On winter mornings, Trocmé cooked soup in a large metal pot. Although suffering from heart disease, he loaded the soup for the pupils’ lunch onto a wheelbarrow and pushed it for two kilometers over a steep track. At bedtime, Trocmé read the youngsters stories, which he then discussed with them at length. After several months, Daniel Trocmé was offered to take the position of principal of the school of La Maison des Roches. There too he continued his rescue activity. On June 29, 1943, the Gestapo raided the school in search for Jewish students and the director. Trocmé was not on the grounds, because he had spent the night in Les Grillons.

Although he could have fled, he chose to return and joined his Jewish students. Under threat of the German submachine guns, Trocmé and eighteen of his students were imprisoned in the town of Moulins. During his confinement, Trocmé continued to show courage and determination, bolstering the spirits of the students interned with him. Trocmé was taken to the Gestapo headquarters in Moulins for interrogation and, when accused of protecting a Jewish sixteen-year-old, heexplained that he was only protecting the downtrodden. In August 1943, Trocmé was sent to the detention camp in Compiègne in France; from there he was deported to the camp of Dora. In the beginning of 1944 he was taken in a “transport of the sick” to Majdanek, where he died in April 1944 of exhaustion and sickness. He was just thirty-two-years old. On March 18, 1976, Yad Vashem recognized Daniel Trocmé as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pastor Edouard Theis●+, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), director, College Cevenol, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, arrested and interned by Germans for helping Jews, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title July 15, 1981, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 519; Hallie, 1979, pp. 4-7, 12, 22-44, 61, 82-85, 177, 232-233; Zuccotti, 1993, pp. 221, 229)

Mildred Theis●, (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), Le Chambon, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title July 15, 1981, (Yad Vashem Archives; Gutman, 2003, p. 519; Hallie, 1979, pp. 5, 12, 27, 82, 251; Zuccotti, 1993, pp. 221, 229)

Theis, Pastor Edouard Theis, Mildred File 2066 The Protestant minister Edouard Theis, whose sermons contained an anti-war message, was invited by his colleague, the Reverend André Trocmé● (q.v.), whose beliefs and views he shared, to run the newly founded Collège Cévenol in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in the département of Haute-Loire. When France was occupied and the Vichy regime formed, the two clergymen urged their congregants to shelter persecuted Jews, “ the people of the Bible.” Le Chambon and the surrounding villages became a refuge unique in all of France; hundreds of Jewish refugees, children and entire families, were hidden in various institutions and homes until the liberation. Edouard Theis and his wife Mildred regularly kept Jewish families in their home until they could place them in permanent shelters, and they treated their wards warmly and with dignity. On August 16, 1942, Georges Lamirand, the Minister of Youth in the Vichy government, made an official visit to the town. Trocmé and Theis refused to preach in the church in his presence. A dozen students in the Collège Cévenol handed him a letter stating: “We insist on making it known to you that there are a number of Jews among us. If our comrades, whose only fault is that they were born in another religion, receive the order to submit to deportation, they will disobey those orders, and we will do our best to hide them.” Within two weeks of Lamirand’s visit, a large detachment of gendarmes equipped with police vans moved into Le Chambon and began to make systematic searches.

In church that Sunday, Trocmé and Theis urged the congregants to “do the will of God, not of men.” Theis later explained that he was obeying Deuteronomy 19:2-10, where God commands His people to create cities of refuge where an innocent man could find asylum: “so that innocent blood not be shed in the midst of your land, ... so blood [will not] be upon you.” After a few days of fruitless searches, the gendarmes left the townin frustration. In February 1943, Theis and Trocmé were arrested along with the teacher Roger Darcissac● (q.v.) and were interned for three weeks at the Saint-Paul d’Eyjeaux camp near Limoges. The camp commander pressured them to sign a commitment to obey all orders of the government and its agents, but they refused and were, nevertheless, released. Once released, Theis joined the underground, and participated in the CIMADE escape network to Switzerland. On July 15, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized the Reverend Edouard Theis and his wife Mildred as Righteous Among the Nations.

Emma Voirin●, layperson (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), layperson, hid and protected young Jewish girl in their home, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title April 18, 1989, (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, p. 544)

Jean Voirin●, layperson (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE), hid and protected young Jewish girl in their home, awarded Righteous Among the Nations title April 18, 1989, (Yad Vashem Archives; Fabre, 1970; Gutman, 2003, p. 544)

Voirin, Emma Voirin, Jean File 8374 Jean Voirin, a clerk, lived in Génissiat (Ain) with his wife Emma, their four children aged thirteen to twenty, and a nephew whose father was prisoner of war in Germany. Devout Protestants, they never turned away Pastor Liotard from Bellegarde when he asked for food, clothing, and blankets for Jewish children sheltered by the CIMADE. One day in January 1943, the Pastor arrived accompanied by a twelve-year-old girl, Henni Krzuk, a Jewish refugee from Germany whom the CIMADE had been able to remove from the Rivesaltes camp. “Poor kid, she was wondering where she had landed: a family of unknown people, new faces,” wrote Renée, the Voisin daughter who was thirteen at the time. For her parents however, “Another child, that was normal: they had a heart as big as a mountain, especially when children were concerned.” Though very shy, Henni adjusted quickly to her new surroundings. Jean Voisin had a pleasant garden and raised hens and rabbits. The mayor, the gendarmes and the schoolteachers all helped protect the girl, who passed her final elementary school examinations easily. Three times, however, Jean Voirin had to deal with a couple of informers who were accusing him – quite rightly – of helping the underground. Each time he managed to convince them they were wrong. Henni was fortunate. She found her family again after the liberation. But the Voirin children always considered her as their little sister. On February 17, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Jean and Emma Voirin as Righteous Among the Nations.

Edgar and Elise Wasserfallen● and their two children lived in Lasalle (Gard) in France where Edgar was a pastor in the Reformed Church. (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE)

Wasserfallen, Edgar Wasserfallen, Elise Edgar and Elise Wasserfallen and their two children lived in Lasalle (Gard) in France where Edgar was a pastor in the Reformed Church. When war was declared, the couple, who were of Swiss nationality, could have returned to their homeland, but decided to stay. Pastor Wasserfallen thought that, “… it was the only thing I could do. How could I have continued to live if I had not fulfilled my duty?” The couple saved many Jews who were being hunted down and also helped the Resistance. The Rojtenberg family, Jews from Reims who had sought refuge in Nîmes at the time of the debacle, owed Pastor Wasserfallen their lives. In 1942, with the situation for Jews worsened, Jacques Rojtenberg, 17, his younger brother Roger, 11, his two older brothers who were 21 and 18, as well as his parents, asked for help from CIMADE, a Protestant aid organization for refugees. The two older sons were sent to Chambon-sur-Lignon and from there to Switzerland. Jacques, Roger and their parents were sent to Florac (Lozère) and lodged with farmers, until they could no longer be kept there. Jacques left to look for help. In Lasalle, he asked to see the pastor, who had hung a sign on the door of the presbytery: “Here live Swiss citizens placed under the protection of the Swiss Embassy…”. Jacques explained his tragic situation to him. Pastor Wasserfallen and his wife Elise immediately took in Roger and his mother and accommodated them for four months. The pastor placed Jacques with a family in his parish, the Souliers*, where he was literally adopted as a son.

His father was placed with cousins of the Souliers, and Roger was later accommodated by a Souliers daughter. Pastor Wasserfallen arranged for the mayor of Lasalle to have false papers made for the Rojtenbergs, and served as a “mailbox” for correspondence between the two older sons and their parents. In February 1944, following a denunciation, Jacques had to be quickly evacuated to the home of othermembers of the Soulier family. In spite of the serious risks involved, Pastor Wasserfallen personally accompanied him there by bus. On August 13, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Edgar and Elise Wasserfallen as Righteous Among the Nations.

Westphal●, Charles, and Westphal, Denise.  (Comite d’Inter Mouvement après des Evacues; CIMADE)

Under the Occupation, Charles Westphal was the pastor of the Protestant community in Grenoble (Isère), where he lived with his wife and six children. A renowned theologian and an eminent personality in French Protestantism before the war, he also managed an important Protestant magazine, Foi et Vie, in which he disseminated the writings and thoughts of Professor Karl Barth. Charles Westphal initiated a true revolution in the Protestant community’s attitude toward Judeo-Christian relations. During the Occupation, he made an important contribution to the elaboration of the Pomeyrol Theses, written in 1941 by an assembly of pastors to combat Nazism and antisemitism. Madeleine Barot●, a leader in CIMADE, a Protestant aid organization for refugees, also played an important role in it. Charles Westphal’s spiritual influence encouraged many Protestants to rescue Jews, especially on the Vivarais-Lignon plateau. The Westphals, who were very discrete about their own rescue operations, succeeded in having Imre Gomery, a Hungarian Jew destined for deportation, released from the Rivesaltes camp. While awaiting his release, his wife received “comfort and hope” from the Westphals. The couple continued to help them by supplying food parcels. Simon Feigelson, an 18-year-old Jew who had fled to Grenoble with his family, received his conscription notice from the Forced Labor Service (STO) in September 1943. He decided not to show up and was being sought by the authorities.

Pastor Westphal offered to hide him. Denise Westphal worked miracles to feed all her wards, as there was another group of Jewish fugitives hidden in the maid’s room. Claude, one of their daughters, carried the meals upstairs to them. The Westphals took enormous risks because their position was known to the public and because the French police and Gestapo dealt harshly with anyone involved in the rescue of Jews, especially after the withdrawal of Italian troops from the regionin September 1943. For the rest of his life, Pastor Charles Westphal worked tirelessly to bring Jews and Christians together. On April 13, 2004, Yad Vashem recognized Charles and Denise Westphal as Righteous Among the Nations.

Reverend Clayton Williams, CIMADE, pastor, American Church, Paris, France, (Fabre, 1970, p. 62)