Member or Cooperating Agencies with the Nimes Committee

Part 5: Memorial Relief Committee through RELICO

Memorial Relief Committee, Marseilles, France

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)

USA, active in France, (Ryan, 1996, pp. 106, 150-153, 216)

The Mennonite Central Committee operated an orphanage in Marseilles and distributed food and other supplies to refugee children. They had a staff of five relief workers.

Mexican Government

Lázáro Cardenás, president of Mexico

Mexican Embassy, Paris, France

Luis I. Rodriguez

Mexican Consulate, Marseilles, France

Gilberto Bosques

Narciso Bassols

Mexican Embassy, Lisbon, Portugal

José Alvarez

Nîmes Committee, Health Committee

Pastor Toureille●, president of the Coordination Committee

Mr. DuBois, Secours Suisse

Mrs. DuBois, Secours Suisse

Dr. René Zimmer, (Jewish), head doctor, Unitarian Service Committee (USC)

Mr. Vaucher, Institute of Health Research

Dr. Julien Weill, (Jewish) Children’s Aid Rescue Society, (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

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

Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE) was an international Jewish organization devoted to caring for the health and welfare of Jewish adults and children, mainly refugees from Eastern Europe.

With the rise of Nazism in Germany, the organization moved its headquarters to France. In 1938, 80% of the work done by OSE was devoted to children. This included setting up children’s homes and creating an infrastructure to feed and care for these children.

After June 1940, the OSE moved to southern France. OSE, using volunteers, was active in spiriting children away from the internment camps of Gurs, Agde and Rivesaltes in Southern France. More than 600 children were rescued. By the summer of 1942, there were 1200 children sheltered in 14 OSE homes. In 1942, with the occupation of southern France, OSE went underground. Georges Garel headed the underground activities of the OSE from August 1942. Garel managed to hide approximately 1,600 Jewish children. OSE worked under the umbrella of UGIF-S, which helped in providing cover for its operations.

In 1943, all the children’s homes were closed. The children were taken individually into hiding with non-Jewish families or to other, non-Jewish institutions. Others were taken to neutral Switzerland or Spain. Children who were too young, who "looked Jewish," or who had not mastered the French language, were smuggled across the Swiss border by OSE guides. Over 1000 children escaped from France through these convoys. In addition, OSE cared for more than 1,000 Jewish children who continued living with their families. Historians estimate that by the end of the war, OSE had saved between 6,000 and 9,000 Jewish children.

During the war, 32 OSE staff members lost their lives and approximately 90 OSE children did not survive. Some of the prominent Jews who worked with OSE were Eugene Minkowski (Paris), Joseph Milner, Julien Samuel, Nicole Salon-Weill, Huguette Wahl (Marseilles), Charles Lederman, Elizabeth Hirsch (Lyon), Dr. Joseph Weill and Gaston Levy (Limoges), Alan Mosse, Dr. Simon Brutzkus, Dr. Lazar Gorevich, Dr. Boris Tschlenoff, Andrée Salomon and Georges Loinger, among many others. The OSE was supported by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).

Several dozen employees and more than a hundred supporters of the OSE were murdered by the Germans for their activities in rescuing more than 5,000 children.

[Adler, J. The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution. (New York, 1987), pp. 62-63, 156, 166-168, 215, 226. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 153, 161-162, 165-166, 171-172, 208, 237, 241, 251, 253, 261, 263, 321, 333. Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987). Kieval, H. “Legality and Resistance in Vichy France: The Rescue of Jewish Children.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 124 (1980), 339-366. Latour, A. The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1981). Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). 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. 43, 59, 61, 105, 109, 121, 173, 178-183, 189, 204-205, 223-224, 244-245, 250, 275, 318, 332n5. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002).]

Georges Garel (Leader, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

George Garel founded the Circuit Garel, or the Garel Circuit, an elaborate rescue network to save Jews that operated in southern France from August 1942 until the liberation of France in August 1944. Garel was a French Jew who ran a small electrical business in Lyon. Headed the underground activities of the OSE from August 1942. Garel managed to hide approximately 1,600 Jewish children. OSE worked under the umbrella of UGIF-S, which helped in providing cover for its operations.

[Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 140-141. Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Marrus, Michael, R., and Robert O. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. (New York: Basic Books, 1981). 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. 121-122, 178. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), pp. 83-84, 93-94, 96-97, 135.]

Dr. Moussa (Moses) Abadieand Odette Rosenstock (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Marcel Network, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Mussa Abadi and his fiancée, Odette Rosenstock, fled Paris in the summer of 1940 to Nice, in the South of France. The persecution of Jews in this area started in September 1943, after the Germans invaded and occupied southern France. Nice and Cannes, as well as other areas, became areas of German control. During this period, Abadi and Rosenstock began rescuing Jewish children whose parents had been deported or were in hiding. Once the children were in their protection, Abadi and Rosenstock began to look for safe hiding places to hide their charges. They were aided by the Catholic bishop of Nice, Bishop Raymond. Raymond supported the rescue efforts by opening up Catholic institutions as well as allocating a small office for Abadi to produce forged ID cards and baptismal certificates. Abadi also sought and received support from the Protestant ministers in the area as well as working with Jewish underground organizations such as the OSE and the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), which gave him financial support. Rosenstock continued to check up on the young Jews in hiding. The lives of Abadi and Rosenstock were in constant danger. Abadi and Rosenstock, and the “Marcel Network,” as they were called, are credited with saving the lives of more than 500 Jewish children.

[Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 193, 232. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), pp. 88-89.]

Madame Averbuch (Paris), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

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

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.]

Antoine & Françoise Badard● Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Antoine and Françoise Badard owned and operated a family guesthouse, l’Hôtel de la Place, in Doizieux (Loire), a small village of about 400 inhabitants, located south of Saint-Étienne. Besides their regular guests, the guesthouse was used by pupils during the school year, as well as “colonies de vacances” during the summer. In April 1944, the Badards offered shelter to Alain and Serge Frank, two Jewish children aged five and seven, whose parents had been arrested by the Germans. Fanny and Léon Frank had four children: Solande, the eldest, Alain and Serge, and Gilbert, born in 1942. Fanny was a French-born citizen, but Léon was a stateless refugee from Germany. With the declaration of war between France and Germany in September 1939, the family retreated from Strasbourg to Tourtoriac (Dordogne) in the southern zone, where they resided in relative peace until April 1944. On 1 April, the Germans, aided by the French militia, launched a massive hunt for Jews and members of the Resistance hiding in the region. Fanny, Léon and Gilbert, Fanny's mother and one of her brothers were all arrested. They were later deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Solange, Alain and Serge were at school at the time, and were thus spared from arrest. The village’s mayor and the Abbot Antoine Dumas*, who had set up a rescue network for Jewish children, helped the three escape to a welfare association in Périgueux (Dordogne). From there, Solange was sent to Annecy (Haute Savoie) where Rolande Birgy* placed her with a family living in the city.

Alain and Serge were taken under the wing of Le Circuit Garel, the clandestine rescue network of the OSE Jewish welfare association, through which the boys arrived at the Badards' guesthouse in Doizieux. Alain and Serge were welcomed warmly by the Badards, and they still remember the family atmosphere created by their hosts. The children were presented as their nephews, and were registered at the local schoolunder the false name of “Franet.” They regularly attended mass on Sundays, and integrated in all the village’s activities. Another Jewish child, Bernard Hochman, was also saved in Doizieux by the Beaufrère* family. Most of the villagers were accomplices to the boys’ rescue. At liberation, the two orphans, Alain and Serge, became pupils of the OSE, and were placed in various children homes of the association until they reached adulthood. On 25 January 2009, Yad Vashem recognized Antoine and Françoise Badard as Righteous Among the Nations.

Dr. René Block*, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Deported and killed.

[Klarsfeld, p. 29.]

Balthazard, Ernest●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Ernest Balthazard was in charge of the reception center of the Secours National in Annemasse (Haute-Savoie), near the Swiss border, working very closely with the mayor, Jean Deffaugt*. An Alsatian who refused to serve in the German army, he provided indispensable support to the members of the Garel Rescue Network, linked to the OSE which was responsible of the clandestine movement of Jewish children into Switzerland. By 1943, Georges Loinger, one of those in charge of the Garel Network, had struck up a friendship with Balthazard, based on their shared Alsatian roots and the pair worked in close collaboration until the Liberation. Ernest Balthazard received groups of children in his reception center and provided them with secret shelter until they could leave for Switzerland. The children were given false papers, but moving them to Switzerland still entailed tremendous risks. Between the station platform and the reception center, Balthazard had designated a path marked ”Vacation Camps”, thereby avoiding German checkpoints. This practice made possible the rescue of more than 300 children. On May 31, 1944, Marianne Cohn* and a group she was leading along the route were arrested and locked up in a bleak prison in the Hôtel Pax of Annemasse. Two of the children imprisoned, Sam Jacquet and Alice Podstolski, both aged 16, remember the moral and material support provided by Ernest Balthazard. He saw to the distribution of food and alerted their families by means of clandestine mail.

He provided such basic essentials as toothpaste, soap and handkerchiefs. Balthazard raised their morale and kept them informed about the progress of the war, the Allied landing and the Red Army breakthrough. The children lived to see the Liberation. Marianne Cohn, however, paid for her commitment with her life. She was murdered by militia troops on July 8, 1944, at Ville la Grand. On December 26, 2005, Yad Vashem recognized Ernest Balthazard as Righteous Among the Nations.

Birgy, Rolande●, the Jeunesse Ouvriére Chrétienne (JOC) in Annecy and in the vicinity of the Swiss border.

File 2613 Rolande Birgy was affiliated with the Jeunesse Ouvriére Chrétienne (JOC) in Annecy and in the vicinity of the Swiss border. During the occupation, she and others risked their lives to help Jews seeking sanctuary from the occupation authorities and from the Vichy regime to cross into Switzerland. Birgy belonged to the underground network created by the Jewish Scout movement, La Sixième, to smuggle Jewish children into Switzerland. Birgy helped and accompanied hundreds of children and entire families who fled from France. In April 1944, she accompanied the Pulver family of St. Julien en Genevois -- husband, wife, three-year-old twin daughters Aline and Miryam, and an elderly woman relative -- to Bossey, a village near the border. She hid them for several hours in the rectory of the village priest and helped them cross the border at the right moment. In all of her missions in rescuing Jews, Birgy displayed exceptional courage, devotion, resourcefulness, and perseverance. On May 27, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Rolande Birgy as Righteous Among the Nations.

Gertrude Blumenstock-Levy*, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Gertrude Blumenstock-Levy was an OSE worker at Le Masgelier children’s home. She was murdered.

Dr. Moise Blumenstock*, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dr. Moise Blumenstock was the staff physician at Le Masgelier children’s home. He was an OSE worker who avoided arrest and escaped a roundup. He joined the underground and resistance. He was murdered in June 1944.

[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. 182.]

Bonhoure, Roger●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Christian Fellowship (Amitié Chrétienne) and the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

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.

Borel, René●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, and the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

The OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) was a Jewish welfare organization established in 1912 in St. Petersburg. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the organization moved its headquarters to Berlin. In 1933, when Hitler came to power in Germany, it moved once again, this time settling in Paris, where it established an extensive aid network for Jewish immigrants. In 1935, René Borel, a non-Jew, was nominated treasurer of the OSE. He quickly became very dedicated to the organization's work – far beyond his job description. When France was occupied and the persecution of Jews began, Borel not only stayed on at the OSE, but expanded his activities. The organization continued its official welfare work within the framework of Jewish organizations, establishing a growing number of children’s homes. But soon, especially after the beginning of the deportation of Jews to the East, the OSE also created a clandestine network, which brought children into hiding, paid for their upkeep, and supervised their wellbeing. As most of the OSE’s activity was centered in the southern "free" zone to which many Jews had fled, Borel moved to Lyon with his wife and their infant son, Philippe. The Borels' apartment soon became a center for clandestine meetings of OSE aid workers and activists. The organization also closely cooperated with the underground Garel network, which smuggled children out of French detention camps and brought them to safety.

To this end, René Borel channeled funds sent from the United States to Switzerland and then needed to be brought illicitly to France for distribution among the Garel activists to pay the children’s hosts. Garel’s widow, Elise, later told Yad Vashem that she clearly remembered the treasurer who had worked closely with her husband. In February 1944, some OSE functionaries were arrested and interrogated. Borel happened to be in Chambery and luckily evaded capture, and his apartment in Lyon remained one of the fewfunctional centers for the organization. Undeterred by the danger, Borel continued his activities until May 26, 1944, when his building was destroyed by Allied air raids. Fortunately, the Borels were absent from their home at the time, but all the OSE documentation was destroyed together with the apartment. Borel remained undaunted, and continued his work from a new location until liberation. After the war, René Borel immigrated to Canada, returning to Paris in his old age. "For my father," said his son Philippe, "his activity within OSE was the most important event of his life. It was a world that he loved deeply: the wealth of cultures, the open spirit, an intelligence that was always mixed with humor, the simplicity, and the absence of pretension. He had found his real family – a family of the heart and of the spirit." René Borel was not the only member of his family who helped Jews during the Holocaust. His mother, Marie Françoise Borel*, hid six Jews in her home in Romainville (Seine-Saint-Denis). On August 25, 2011, Yad Vashem recognized René Borel as Righteous Among the Nations.

Borel●, Marie-Françoise

Eugène and Esther Kaufman emigrated from Hungary and settled in Paris, where they married in 1934. They earned their living as furriers, and operated a fur workshop in their apartment on the northern outskirts of Paris at Les Lilas. Their daughter Hélène was born in 1936. In July 1942, Esther was arrested during the mass round-up of foreign Jews in the capital city and taken to Drancy, the transit camp from which the Jews of France were deported to the East. Eugène, who was employed by the Germans as a forced labor furrier at a workshop in Paris, set about releasing his wife, claiming that she was an indispensable specialist whom he could not do without. However, on her return, Esther convinced Eugène that what she had witnessed in Drancy was enough reason for them to go into hiding. The Kaufmans turned to Marie-Françoise Borel, a widow who lived nearby. Borel offered them shelter at a small two-room house she owned in Romainville (Seine-Saint-Denis). The Kaufmans remained hidden there until liberation. Former neighbors of the Kaufmans', the Kwiatek family, were also saved by Borel. The couple, who worked in the manufacture of gloves and hats, had emigrated to France from Poland in 1933, and settled in Les Lilas. Their two daughters, Paulette and Thérèse, were born in 1936 and 1940. In June 1941, M. Kwiatek was arrested and incarcerated in Pithiviers. He was deported to Auschwitz one year later, and survived.

Meanwhile, his wife, Feija continued to sustain the family, but gave her daughters to a neighbor to look after in order to keep them safe. In June 1943, the girls were denounced and arrested. A friend succeeded in releasing them and, as the drama ended, Marie-Françoise Borel intervened for the second time. She offered Feija and her two daughters a hiding place in a large country house she had at her disposal in the hamlet of Villevert, near Limours (today Essonne), some 30km southwest of Paris. Feija earned a living workingon the surrounding farms and helping with agricultural tasks. Though they were aware of their true identity, their neighbors were very friendly towards them and kept their presence secret until the family was reunited after the war ended. On 15 March 2009, Yad Vashem recognized Marie-Françoise Borel as Righteous Among the Nations.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 248. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), p. 30.]

Professor Bresedka (Paris), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dr. Simon Brutzkus, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Eve Cahen*, (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Deported and killed.

[Klarsfeld, p. 29.]

Leon “Alex” Chertock, Mouvement National Contre le Racisme, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Alex Chertock was a leader of the Mouvement National Contre le Racisme. Chertock worked with Suzanna Spaatz and Thérèse Pierre. They organized a children’s rescue network. They worked with Protestant religious leaders in Southern France. Worked with OSE.

André Chouraqui, (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Marianne Cohen*, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE), (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network)

Marianne Cohen helped smuggle Jewish children from the Italian-controlled French zone in the south to Switzerland. She was betrayed, caught and deported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered.

[Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 201-202, 250. 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. 182-183. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), p. 124.]

Margot Cohen (Hérault Prefecture), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dr. Jean Cremer, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dr. Jean Cremer helped organize the rescue of Jews in France.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 248.]

Marie Dauphin-Debise (Madame Bourrat) ●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Who was Madame Bourrat? This was the only name Manfred and Kurt Judes remembered of their rescuer during WWII. After considerable investigation, they finally discovered that Madame Bourrat was in fact Marie Dauphin-Debise. She was known by the name of the man she lived with, M. Bourrat, after his wife had passed away. Madame Bourrat was renting a small farm in Neyron (Ain) when she accepted to shelter the two boys at the beginning of 1944. At the time, M. Bourrat was already seriously ill, and died during the boys’ stay at the farm. Manfred and Kurt Judes had undergone quite a journey before ending up in Neyron. They were first cousins, born in Germany. Together with their parents and many other Jewish families, they had been expelled overnight by the Nazis, and transported by train from Freibourg to southern France in 1940. The French authorities welcomed the expelled Jews by interning them in concentration camps. The Judes were first incarcerated in Gurs and later in Rivesaltes, where the two boys were taken out by an OSE social worker. That was the last time they saw their parents because in August 1942, all Jewish German nationals still incarcerated in the camps of southern France were sent to Drancy and then to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. Manfred and Kurt were integrated in the OSE children's homes of Montintin (Haute-Vienne), south of Limoges, and later in La Mulatière, close to Lyon (Rhône), renamed Les Hirondelles after the war.

Following the arrest of the association’s leadership in Chambéry in February 1944, the OSE feared for the security of the children and decided to dismantle its children's homes. The cousins were then taken under the wing of the Circuit Garel, the OSE underground network, and sent to live with Marie Dauphin-Debise. The two boys, now aged 15 and 18, received new identities, becoming Maurice and Charles Julian. They helped Madame Bourrat with farm chores, and remained ather house until liberation. They then returned to the care of the OSE until their aunt from the US applied for their guardianship. Manfred still lives in America under the name of Fred Jarvis. Kurt ended up in Jerusalem. On 26 December 2010 Yad Vashem recognized Marie Dauphin-Debise, also known as Madame Bourrat, as Righteous Among the Nations.

De Courrèges d’Ustou●, Monsignor Louis, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

File 1870c Monsignor de Courrèges was the chief assistant of Monsignor Saliège● (q.v.), Archbishop of Toulouse, who put him in charge of the program of hiding Jewish children in Catholic institutions. This was in response to an appeal by Georges Garel, head of the Jewish underground network responsible for the rescue of children of the Jewish organization OSE (Organisation de Secours aux Enfants). Monsignor de Courrèges helped Garel in the Toulouse diocese. He instructed Louise Thébe● (q.v.), director of the Sainte-Germaine association, to shelter Jewish children in her institutions, and issued orders, with Archbishop Saliège’s blessing, that no one should try to convert the children. Thus, from December 1942 until the village was liberated, eighty-two children were given asylum in the Notre-Dame home in Massip, a village in the département of Aveyron. Survivors, who testified about their experiences after the war, were unanimous in stressing the warmth of the Notre-Dame staff. Monsignor de Courrèges placed scores of other children in institutions under his supervision, helped rescue 650 Jews, aged sixty and over, from detention camps in southwestern France, and arranged safe refuge for some of these elderly in old-age homes. On June 9, 1944, the Gestapo broke into Courrèges’s office in Toulouse to arrest and interrogate him. Fortunately, he was attending a work meeting with the prefect of the département, was warned in time and went into hiding.

On July 8, 1980, Yad Vashem recognized Monsignor Louis de Courrèges d’Ustou as Righteous Among the Nations.

Deffaugt, Jean●, Deffaut Rescue Network

File 178 On May 31, 1944, a group of Jews trying to cross the border into Switzerland was apprehended near the town of Annemasse in Haute-Savoie. There were twenty-eight Jewish boys and girls in the group, aged four to sixteen, led by Marianne Cohn*, a young underground activist. The entire group was imprisoned in a wing of the Pax Hotel, which the Germans had converted into a prison. The mayor of Annemasse, Jean Deffaugt, had learned what had happened from his contacts with the underground. He went to the hotel and, after a long discussion, using courage and cunning, he managed to persuade the Gestapo commander to release the youngest children, those aged four to eleven. The Germans made the mayor promise to return them when ordered to do so. Thus, seventeen children were set free. Jean Deffaugt then set up a complex operation, thanks to which the children found a safe refuge. The mayor had made such a strong impression on the Gestapo commander that he gave him a permit allowing him access to the prison to see all the prisoners there. Before each visit, Deffaught collected food, medicines, blankets, and other vital necessities for the Jewish prisoners. He visited them before they were deported, fed them, bandaged their wounds, and comforted them as best he could. Deffaugt and his wife knew that they were also in danger with the occupation regime. After the war, he admitted it frankly, “I was afraid, I confess. I never went up the Gestapo steps without crossing myself or murmuring a prayer.”

Five boys and six girls remained in the Pax Hotel with Cohn. They could be seen walking together in the street every day en route to the various tasks their jailers had imposed. The Jewish underground network to which Marianne belonged made a plan to save her. A car would be waiting at the street corner while she was walking with the children. When the mayor told Cohn about the plan, she demurred. Was it not her mission to look after the children? How could she abandon them, knowing that the Germans were likely to take vengeance upon them for her escape. Aware that her chances of survival as a Jew were slim, she had told her interrogators courageously, “I have saved more than two hundred children, and if I am set free, I will continue to do so.” On the night of July 8, 1944, twenty-year-old Cohn was abducted from the prison and murdered by the French militia. Later that month, the Gestapo commander in Annemasse informed Deffaugt that the children had to “disappear” because the prison was overcrowded. Once again, Deffaugt managed to convince him to place the children in his charge, promising to return them if asked. On the last Sunday of July 1944, these children were taken to join the younger children. Annemasse was liberated on August 18, and all the Jewish children were relocated to Geneva, where they were sent to Jewish organizations who oversaw their rehabilitation. Twenty years afterward, Deffaugt was still in touch with most of the children, receiving moving letters from Alsace, England, and Israel. In their correspondence, the survivors often mentioned Marianne Cohn, who had given her life for them. On October 19, 1965, Yad Vashem recognized Jean Deffaugt as Righteous Among the Nations.

Madeleine Dreyfus (Lyon), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Pierre Dreyfus, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Abbot Antoine Dumas*, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants Children’s Relief Organization (OSE). Set up a rescue network for Jewish children, helped the three escape to a welfare association in Périgueux (Dordogne).

Dumas, Father Antoine File 4905 In July 1942, after the great roundup of Jews in Paris, the Biderman family fled to the vicinity of Lyons. They quickly exhausted their meager savings and could not support themselves and their three young children: twelve-year-old Georges, ten-year-old Bernard, and eight-year-old Clément. In desperation, the Bidermans entreated the OSE (Organisation de Secours aux Enfants) to place their children with a French family. From October 1942 to October 1944, through the OSE’s arrangements, the Biderman children stayed with Father Antoine Dumas, the priest of St Just en Doizieux, a very small remote village in the Loire département, who met their needs and assured their safety. During this time, Jewish children from emigrant families from the Netherlands, Poland, and Germany also spent brief periods in Dumas’s home. Their plight was particularly serious because they lacked French citizenship. The villagers knew of Father Dumas’s activities and emulated him. At first, they helped by bringing food for the children; eventually, they also opened their homes to persecuted Jews. Even the walled Franciscan convent near the village hid Jews, possibly under Dumas’ influence. There were no denunciations in Doizieux, which functioned as a cohesive group and saved approximately one hundred Jews, mostly children. After the war, the survivors hung a marble plaque in the church over the altar of Mary, with the following inscription: “à la plus belle des Filles d’Israël en reconnaissance pour la protection accordée à ses correligionaires dans cette Paroisse au cours des années de persécution juive par les Nazis.

Années 1941-1944” (“To the loveliest of daughters of Israel, in gratitude for the protection granted to its coreligionists in this parish during the years of Jewish persecution by the Nazis”). The survivors remained in regular contact with Father Dumas through correspondence and visits until his death in 1969. On May 5, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Father Antoine Dumas as Righteous Among the Nations.

l’Abbé Duras see Pierre● and Berthe Beafrere●

Bernard Hochman registered at a religious boarding school and later, through the social workers of L’Aide aux Mères in Saint-Étienne, to the nearby “Le Nid” children's home in Boën-sur-Lignon. “Le Nid” was directed by 20-year-old Marie-Antoinette Vial*, who sheltered a number of Jewish children. In January 1944, eight new Jewish children arrived at “Le Nid.” The home was now too overcrowded, and some children were sent to foster families, including Bernard. Through the intermediary of a priest, l’AbbéDuras*, Bernard ended up, under the false name of Hochier, with the Beaufrères. They warmly welcomed the boy into their home. He went to school, and helped with chores around the farm. In September 1944, he was reunited with his parents.

Robert Ebstein (“Evrard”; Southeast/Valence), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Laila Feldblum (Izieu), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Jeanne Frenkel, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE). see file 6089 Andre Boillot● and Adolf Ridart●.

Fizer (Lyon), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Gaudefroy, Pauline Renée●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

File 1038 In 1943, Pauline Gaudefroy (b. 1916), a registered nurse, became involved in rescuing Jewish children through Circuit Garel, an underground branch of the Jewish organization OSE. In September, after the Germans occupied the Côte d’Azur, the situation of Jewish refugees in this area deteriorated. Gaudefroy volunteered to take Jewish children to central France and, under the auspices of Garel, directed rescue activities in the départements of Haute-Vienne, Creuse, and Corrèze. She escorted the children, who had been given refuge with families in the Côte d’Azur, to new hiding places, thus saving dozens of young Jewish lives. In December 1943, Gaudefroy assumed responsibility for a Jewish child named Jean-Georges Kahn (b. 1934). She provided forged papers and included him in a group of children whom she was accompanying by train to a safe haven. The journey was extremely dangerous. When the train reached Limoges, the Germans boarded and interrogated Gaudefroy, who hastily swallowed her suspicious papers and saved herself and her wards from arrest. Initially, the principal of a boarding school in La Souterraine refused to admit the children, but Gaudefroy persuaded him, and the school provided a safe refuge for the children until liberation day. After the war, Dr. Toby Salomon, another Garel operative, testified to Gaudefroy’s extreme devotion, modesty, and the total confidence she inspired in the children under her care. Gaudefroy met a bitter and tragic end.

On June 11, 1944, she was arrested by the French militia and tortured. About two weeks later, she escaped from Limoges in an ambulance and reached a partisan unit. There, Maquis fighters who suspected her of being a spy killed her. In Gaudefroy’s memory, the OSE established an orphanage bearing her name in Le Vesinet, near Paris. On May 30, 1976, Yad Vashem recognized Pauline Gaudefroy as Righteous Among the Nations.

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

Alexandre Glasberg (1902-1981), (France; Lyons Catholic Archdiocese), Amitié Chretienne; Children’s Aid Rescue Society, (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE), Le Circuit Garel,)

Honored by Yad Vashem June 17, 2003, File 9792. See Appendix E for Yad Vashem biography.

Alexandre (André) Glasberg was a Jew born in Zhitomir, in the Ukraine. He converted and became a Catholic priest in France. In 1940, he established a charitable organization called Christian Friendship (Amitié Chrétienne). This organization was involved in the rescue and relief of Jews in southern France. Glasberg operated with the help of French Catholic Cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier, who was head of the Catholic Church in France. Amitié Chrétienne set up shelters for Jews who were released from the French internment camps. In the summer of 1942, Glasberg and his organization went underground. He helped to hide Jews throughout the unoccupied zone. In December 1942, Glasberg’s activities were found out by the Gestapo, and he joined the French partisan movement.

After the war, Glassberg worked with the Mossad Aliyah Bet, helping Jews emigrate to Palestine.

[Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Marrus, Michael, R., and Robert O. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. (New York: Basic Books, 1981), pp. 200, 207. 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. 113, 121-122, 244. Wellers, Z. G., A. Kaspi, and S. Klarsfeld (Eds.) La France et al Question Juive, 1940-1944. (Paris, 1981).]

Dr. Gluck*, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dr. Gluck was an OSE staff physician at the Brout-Vernet (Allier) home. He was murdered in June 1944.

Dr. Lazar Gorevich/Gurvic (Secretary General, Geneva office, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE))

Dr. Pierre Grinberg, MNCR-Southern Zone,

Dr. Grinberg worked with the Swiss Red Cross and OSE to save Jewish children in Southern France.

[Rayski, p. 189.]

Lazare Gurvic, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

[Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), p. 29.]

Olga Gurvic (Geneva), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

[Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), p. 29.]

Marc Haguenau, Haguenau Platoon, French Jewish Scouts (EIF)

Marc Haguenau was a prominent member of the French Jewish Scouts. Working in Southern France, he organized the rescues of hundreds of Jews.

[Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Marrus, Michael, R., and Robert O. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 208. 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. 262-263.]

Judith Hemmendiger-Feist (Geneva), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Herail●, Eugénie (Mother Augustin)

Eugénie Herail (Mother Augustin) was the Mother Superior of the Convent of Mercy (Communauté de la Miséricorde) in Millau (Aveyron). The convent was part of a network for saving Jewish children, established under the patronage of the Archbishop of Toulouse, Monsignor Saliège*, who protested publicly against the inhuman treatment of the Jews by the Vichy regime. Saliège instructed his clergymen and nuns to hide Jews, particularly children, and he appointed his adjutant Bishop de Courrèges d’Ustou* to coordinate these rescue activities. Mother Augustin accepted Jewish girls sent by the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE) to stay in the orphanage attached to the Millau convent – some for just a few days while waiting for a more permanent shelter, and others until liberation. Among those hidden at the orphanage were the three Bakalja sisters – Esther (later Katzeff), Myriam (later Tylbor), and Sarah (later Lipschitz) – from Paris, whose parents, Jermina and Brandla, had immigrated to France from Poland in the 1920s. The sisters had been sent by their mother to an OSE children’s home early in the war to keep them safe. In mid-1943, a social worker accompanied them to Millau and left them with Mother Augustin. Upon their arrival, they were given new names in order to blend in with the Catholic community: Esther was renamed Estelle, Myriam reverted to her French name Marguerite, and Sarah became Huguette. They were welcomed with open arms by the nuns and treated as equals to the other girls, including having the obligation to attend religious instruction.

The girls remained under the care of the nuns until liberation. After the war, when they discovered that their parents and siblings had been deported and murdered, the Bakalja sisters were once more taken under the wing of the OSE. On March 30, 2009, Yad Vashem recognized Eugénie Herail (Mother Augustin) as Righteous Among the Nations.

Elizabeth Hirsch (Lyon), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Jules “Dika” Jefroykin (1911-1987), Jewish Zionist Youth Movement (MJS), American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), General Union of French Jews (UGIF-S)

Jules Jefroykin was a prominent Jewish rescue and resistance leader in Southern France. Jefroykin, along with Simon Levitte, founded the Jewish Zionist Youth Movement (MJS) in the winter of 1941-1942. Jefroykin participated with the Jewish Combat Organization and was instrumental in smuggling Jewish children and youths from France into Spain. Jefroykin was also the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s representative in France, and along with Maurice Brener, was responsible for funding rescue activities, which were considered illegal.

[Adler, J. The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution. (New York, 1987), pp. 142, 144-145. Avni, H. “The Zionist Underground in Holland and France and the Escape to Spain.” In Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, edited by Y. Gutman and E. Zuroff, pp. 555-590. (Jerusalem, 1977). 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), pp. 60, 114. Latour, A. The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1981), pp. 24-25, 88, 98, 117, 124-127, 170-173, 190, 205, 253. Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 68-69, 102, 166, 220, 235, 257-259, 263-264, 287-288, 295. 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. 68, 244, 271.]

Robert Job (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Simone Kahn (Paris), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Joseph Kogan, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Joseph Kogan directed the OSE children’s home at Brout-Vernet. He was arrested with two children.

Raymond Raoul Lambert, Leader, General Union of French Jews (Union Général des Israelites de France; UGIF-S), CAR, Member of the Executive Committee of the Nîmes Committee

Raymond Raoul Lambert was a community leader and a leader of the General Union of French Jews (UGIF-South).

[Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 11, 19, 53-57, 60-67, 83, 112-130, 157-163, 166-167, 169-171, 173, 176-177, 179-180. 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. 57, 59-64, 140, 158-159, 178, 222, 224, 231-232, 253, 309-310, 334n6.]

Ruth Lambert (Gurs camp) (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Charles Lederman (Lyon), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Gaston Levy (Limoges, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE))

Jeanine Levy (Paris), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Georges Loinger, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Georges Loinger smuggled Jewish children from France into Switzerland. Loinger was a member of OSE (Oeuvre De Secours Aux Enfants; Children’s Aid Rescue Society).

[Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), 79, 136, 137, 210, 211, 215. Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 195, 201-202. 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. 182. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), pp. 84, 96, 104-106, 112, 117, 124.]

Fanny Loinger (“Laugier”; Hotel du Levant; Southeast France/Valence), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Donald Lowrie, World Service of the YMCA, American Friends of Czechoslovakia, Head of Nîmes Committee; Central Commission of Jewish Assistance Organizations (Commission Central des Organizations Juives d-Assistance; CCOJA); (Bauer, 1981, Cohen, 1987, Lowrie, 1963, Paxton, 1981, Rayski, 2005)

Worked and coordinated with Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Mrs. Donald Lowrie, Director of the American Red Cross in Marseille, wife of Donald Lowrie, (Bauer, 1981, Cohen, 1987, Lowrie, 1963; Paxton, 1981)

Worked and coordinated with Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dr. Malkin (Rivesaltes camp; Agde camp, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE))

Germaine Masour (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Hélène Matorine (Paris), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dr. Joseph “Jomi” Millner, Secretary General, General Union of French Jews (Union Général des Israelites de France; UGIF-S, Head, OSE; Health Section, UJIF), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Joseph Millner served as head of the Health Section of the UGIF-S (Third Directorate) in France. In the summer of 1942, he supervised 1,200 children in 12 homes. Millner and the UGIF-S worked with the Quakers in freeing Jewish children from the French internment camps.

[Adler, J. The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution. (New York, 1987), pp. 99, 101-102. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 153, 245, 248-249, 263. Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), p. 40. Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). 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. 61, 180-182, 350n13. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), p. 87.]

M. Millner, Children’s Aid Rescue Society, (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

liaison with CAR

Dr. Eugene Minkowski (Paris), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Alain Mosse, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE), Garel Network

Alain Mosse worked with the Oeuvre De Secours Aux Enfants (OSE; Children’s Aid Rescue Society) and with the Garel Network in saving Jewish children. Despite the dangers of being arrested and deported, Mosse kept an official office open in Chambery. On February 8, 1944, the Nazis raided his office and took Mosse and some of his volunteers to Drancy, and then to Auschwitz.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 248, 250. Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), p. 142. Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). 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. 180.]

Professor Dr. David Olmer, General Union of French Jews (Union Général des Israelites de France; UGIF-South), Children’s Aid Rescue Society, (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Professor David Olmer worked with Raoul Lambert of the General Union of French Jews (UGIF-South) to try to help stop the deportation of Jews in the Northern and Southern zones by appealing to French leaders.

[Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 64-67, 126. 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. 26, 61.]

Poirier, Pierrette● File 1484e, Garel Network Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

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 workedresolutely 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.

Emmanuel Racine, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Emmanuel Racine was a rescue activist in Southern France.

[Klarsfeld, p. 28. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), p. 124.]

Mila Racine*, Zionist Youth Movement (MJS), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Mila Racine smuggled Jewish children from France into Switzerland as part of the MJS (Mouvement Jeunesse Sioniste; Zionist Youth Movement). Mila Racine was caught, and was murdered.

[Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), pp. 161-162. Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 201-202. Rayski, Adam. The Choice of Jews Under Vichy, Between

Jacques Rather, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Léon Reifman (Hérault Prefecture), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Robert, Jean-Baptiste●, Garel Network Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

In 1940, Jean-Baptiste Robert, 48, became principal of the Ecole primaire supérieure in Souterraine (Creuse). Born in Viverols (Puy-de-Dôme), he had pursued his studies at the Ecole normale supérieure in Saint-Cloud where he taught humanities. A corporal in the 1914-1918 War, he was a firm believer in French Republican values, and from 1940 onward, made no secret of his hopes for an Allied victory. In early 1943, he welcomed approximately 10 persecuted Jewish children into his boarding school. Some had been entrusted to him by parents who had taken refuge in the area or who had gone underground, but others were sent by the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE) after the dissolution of their children’s homes. Jean-Baptiste Robert was an important link in the Garel resistance network, which also included Limoges social worker Pauline Renée Gaudefroy*. All the children they took in were given pseudonyms: Valentin was actually Vormus, Kujar was Kujawski; Halin, Kahn; Hofmann, Horowitz; and Hochet, Hochner. Jean-Baptiste Robert’s rescue activities did not have the unanimous support of the members of his staff, who were not supposed to know the children’s true origins, although they had their suspicions. He was successful, nevertheless, in imposing his views since there were no denunciations. Others on his staff gave active support. Germaine Charret, the institution’s linen maid, whom the children would visit in the laundry room, was a great source of comfort to them.

Her warmth helped them cope with the separation from their families. Germaine was of particular assistance to Jean-Georges Kahn’s mother, arranging for her to be hired as a cook elsewhere. Through Mr. Robert’s connections, the principal of the local boarding school for girls took in Jewish girls, including young Léon Porzycki’s sister. Jean-Baptiste Robert’s Jewish wards owed their lives to his protection. On April 18, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Jean-Baptiste Robert as RighteousAmong the Nations.

Charlotte Rosenbaum (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Odette Rosenstock (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Alice Salomon, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Alice Salomon was a volunteer rescuers and director of La Verdière children’s home in the Marseilles area. The home was raided by the Nazis and Salomon and forty of the children were deported to Drancy in Paris.

[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. 180. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), pp. 42, 86, 78-82, 120-121, 125.]

Andrée Salomon (Rivesaltes camp; Hotel du Levant; Montpellier), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Andrée Salomon worked with Julien Samuel in the Limoges sector of the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE; Children’s Aid Rescue Society). Salomon helped Jewish children escape from France to Spain.

[Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), pp. 40, 42, 44, 70, 169, 174, 175. Lazare, Luciene. Rescue as Resistance: How Jewish Organization Fought the Holocaust in France. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 132, 166, 186-187, 288.]

Jacques Salon, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Julien Samuel (Les Milles camp; Marseilles) (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Julien Samuel worked with the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE; Children’s Aid Rescue Society) in southern France. Samuel was arrested by the Nazis and deported.

Samuel survived the war and became a Jewish leader for French Jewry.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 162, 245, 247, 250. Cohen, R. I. The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust. (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 13-14, 25, 27, 33, 35. Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), pp. 67, 199. 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, 181, 244. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), pp. 92, 129, 118-122.]

Nathan Samuel (Paris), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Vivette Samuel-Hermann (Rivesaltes camp; Les Milles camp; Lyon) (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE))

Vivette Samuel was a volunteer with the Children’s Aid Rescue Society (OSE) at the Rivesaltes French concentration camp.

[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. 109. Samuel, Vivette. Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002).]

Edith Scheftel (Central France/Limoges), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Joseph J. Schwartz, American Joint Disribution Committee (JDC). Central Commission of Jewish Assistance Organizations (Commission Central des Organizations Juives d-Assistance; CCOJA) (Bauer, 1981, Cohen; Marrus, 1981; Paxton; Rayski, 2005,)

Provided funding for OSE through the American Joint Disribution Committee (JDC).

Joachim Simon (”Schuschu”), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Suzanne Spaak, Mouvement National Contre le Racisme (MNCR)

Suzanna Spaatz was a leader of the Mouvement National Contre le Racisme. Spaatz worked with Alex Chertock and Thérèse Pierre. They organized a children’s rescue network. They worked with Protestant religious leaders in Southern France. Worked with OSE.

[Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), p. 123. 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. 189, 308, 352n49.]

Margot Stein (Hotel Bompart), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Stolze-Coqué, Simone●, Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Simone Coqué, whose married name was Stolze, had been born in Moselle where she had studied to be a nurse. When war was declared, she was working at the Grandmaison Hospital in Metz. Hostile to the annexation by Germany, she moved to Lyons and contacted the Garel resistance network, which was in charge of the clandestine rescue of Jewish children and affiliated with the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE). Early in 1943 she escorted two groups of Jewish children between the ages of 9 and 11 by train from Limoges to Annemasse so they could secretly cross the border into Switzerland. As these trips were becoming too dangerous, Simone was put in charge of following up on Jewish children placed in religious institutions or with individuals in the southern Massif Central region, particularly in the Departments of Aveyron and Cantal. She regularly brought money to the children’s guardians, as well as clothing and food ration cards, and looked after their wellbeing. In this way she spent more than two years traveling the roads of these departments, at her own risk and peril. On one of her visits, she took charge of a seven-year-old Jewish boy, Salomon Jassy, who was being hidden in the Grezes convent under the name Serge Gaver. During the flight to the south, Salomon and his family had left Paris for the Dordogne. In August 1942, his father was arrested and deported. So that his mother could go into hiding, Salomon and his sister were placed at the OSE’s children’s home in Chabannes (Creuse).

In 1943, the OSE had to scatter its boarders to prevent them from being caught. Salomon was suddenly separated from his sister and entrusted to a foster family ill equipped to take care of a child. He was traumatized by the separation, first from his mother and then from his sister. Salomon was transferred to Grezes, where Simone’s presence was like a ray of sunshine to him. She surrounded him with maternal affection and comforted him. After the Liberation,she succeeded in finding his mother and sister and helped the family to reunite. On November 20, 2003, Yad Vashem recognized Simone Stolze-Coqué as Righteous Among the Nations.

Victor Svarc (“Souvard”; East Central France/Lyon), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Alexander Trocki, HIAS-ICA, Marseilles

Alexander Trocki was the co-director of the HIAS-ICA office in Marseilles. Provided funding for rescue of Jewish cjikdren.

[Ginzberg, Eli. Report to American Jews on Overseas Relief, Palestine and Refugees in the United States. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942), p. 179.]

Dr. Boris Tschlenoff (Geneva), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Celine Vallee (Paris), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Henri Wahl, Sixième, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Henri Wahl, of Sixième, hid approximately 850 Jewish children in the Tarn et Garonne area.

[Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), pp. 74-76, 79, 82, 83, 155-156.]

Huguette Wahl (Marseilles, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Huguette Wahl operated with the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE; Children’s Aid Rescue Society) in southern France. Wahl, along with Nicole Salon-Weill, was caught by the Nazis hiding children and transporting them to the southern zone of France.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 245, 251-253. Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), p. 72.]

Falk Walk (Paris), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dr. Joseph Weill (1902-1988), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE) (Nîmes camp; Limoges; Geneva)

Dr. Joseph Weill was a Jewish physician to the French Jewish Children’s Aid Rescue Society (OSE). 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.]

Dr. Julien Weil (Jewish), Children’s Aid Rescue Society, (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE, Comité Central d’Assistance aux Oeuvres Isräêlites en France

Nicole Salon-Weill* (Marseilles, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Nicole Salon-Weill was a Jewish social worker who operated with the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE; Children’s Aid Rescue Society) in southern France. Salon-Weill, along with Huguette Wahl, was caught by the Nazis hiding children and transporting them to the southern zone of France.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 245, 253. Latour, A. (transl. Irene R. Ilton). The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. (New York, 1970/1981), p. 156. 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. 180.]

Simon Weill (Reinette; Rivesaltes camp, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dora Wertzburg, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Dr. Wolf, Children’s Aid Rescue Society, (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Fanny Zimmer, wife of Dr. René Zimmer. Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE) Unitarian Service Committee (USC), Health Committee, see René Zimmer Rescue Network. (Subak, 2010, pp. 105, 111, 158, 191)

Dr. Rene Zimmer (Marseilles, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE) Unitarian Service Committee (USC), Health Committee, see René Zimmer Rescue Network. (USC Archives; Subak, 2010, pp. 87, 103, 105, 109-112, 125, 148, 156-159, 164, 173-175, 181, 191, 194-195, 198, 209)

Solange Zitlenok (“Rémy”; Southwest France/Toulouse, Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Sabine Zlatin* (Hérault Prefecture), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Miron Zlatin (Hérault Prefecture), Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE)

Garel Rescue Network

Le Circuit Garel, also known as the Garel Resistece Network

The Circuit Garel, or the Garel Circuit, was an elaborate rescue network to save Jews that operated in southern France from August 1942 until the liberation of France in August 1944. It was founded and organized by a French Jew named George Garel who ran a small electrical business in Lyon. Garel worked with Abbé Glasberg (a converted Jew) throughout the war.

In 1942, with the occupation of southern France, OSE went underground. Georges Garel headed the underground activities of the Children’s Aid Rescue Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE from August 1942. Garel managed to hide approximately 1,600 Jewish children. Many of these were with Christian families. Many of these Jewish children had parents who had already been deported to the concentration camps and were threatened with deportation themselves. Many of these were foreign Jews of German, Czech or Polish citizenship. A number of these children were smuggled out of French internment camps.

OSE worked under the umbrella of UGIF-S, which helped in providing cover for its operations.

In the autumn of 1942, Garel’s network was divided between areas in Lyon and Limoges. The Garel Circuit also operated in Paris, under the leadership of Eugene Minkowski.

By mid 1943, the Garel Circuit operated in four regions in southern France with 29 volunteers. They maintained strict security and many did not know the names of many of their fellow rescuers.

The Garel Circuit worked with a number of Catholic and Protestant churches. Garel’s network was supported by Archbishop Jules-Gérard Saliège of Toulouse, and Pierre-Marie Theas, bishop of Montauban.

Several dozen employees and more than a hundred supporters of the OSE were murdered by the Germans for their activities in rescuing more than 5,000 children.

Saliège●, Monsignor Jules-Géraud, the Archbishop of Toulouse, was the first high-ranking clergyman to protest publicly against the inhuman treatment of the Jews by the Vichy regime.

File 197 Monsignor Saliège, the Archbishop of Toulouse, was the first high-ranking clergyman to protest publicly against the inhuman treatment of the Jews by the Vichy regime. On November 23, 1941, he sent a letter of protest on that subject, at a time when the entire Catholic hierarchy was silent. Hearing about the deportation of Jews from the camps in the south of France to the Drancy transit camp in August 1942, he composed a pastoral letter that was read from the pulpit in all the churches of his diocese on Sunday August 23, 1942: “That children, women, and men, fathers and mothers, are treated like a vile herd, that members of a family are separated from one another and sent to an unknown destination, it was reserved for our time to see that sad sight. Why does the right of asylum no longer exist in our churches? Why are we defeated? ... Jewish men are men. Jewish women are women. Not every act is permitted against them. ... They are part of the human race. They are our brothers like so many other people.” Overnight, the document became a manifesto; hundreds of thousands of copies were made and were circulated by members of the Resistance throughout France. Historians consider Saliège’s protest vastly influential in the abrupt turnabout in French public opinion at that time, in which support for the Vichy regime plummeted. Henceforth, more of the French people were prepared to oppose the anti-Jewish actions of the Vichy gendarmes and of the occupation authorities.

Saliège also instructed the clergymen and nuns in his archdiocese to hide Jews, particularly children. Saliège’s adjutant, Bishop de Courrèges (q.v.), was appointed to coordinate activities to save Jews by Church institutions in the archdiocese of Toulouse. At the instruction of the Ministry of the Interior, the town prefect applied pressure, accompanied by threats, in an attempt to deter the priests from reading Saliège’s protest from their pulpits. TheArchbishop withstood these pressures with great courage and nobility of spirit. The authorities then tried to impugn his prestige and spiritual authority by publishing incendiary statements, but they did not dare to silence or punish the Catholic leader, who remained energetic despite his advanced age and poor health. On July 8, 1969, Yad Vashem recognized Archbishop Jules-Géraud Saliège as Righteous Among the Nations.

Georges Garel, Leader Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Headed the underground activities of the OSE from August 1942. Garel managed to hide approximately 1,600 Jewish children. OSE worked under the umbrella of UGIF-S, which helped in providing cover for its operations.

Dr. Moussa Abadie Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Antoine & Françoise Badard● Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Balthazard, Ernest●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Barras, Emile●, lived in Viry (Haute-Savoie) near the Swiss border.

File 6755 Emile Barras was born in Switzerland and held dual citizenship. He lived in Viry (Haute-Savoie) near the Swiss border. A member of the Resistance, he helped evacuate Allied paratroopers who had landed in France to Switzerland and Spain, and thence to England. One day, his friend Joseph Fournier● (q.v.) contacted him. Fournier used his truck to smuggle Jewish children into Switzerland at the request of the Jewish Scouts and the Zionist youth movement. Since Barras was familiar with all roads in the area, Fournier asked his help in smuggling groups of children over the border. The first group, escorted by a young Jewish woman named Marianne Cohn*, reached the Viry railroad station, by train, from Annemasse on May 22, 1944. Barras was waiting for them at the station and noticed that German soldiers were also waiting to examine the passengers’ papers. However, the train was late, and the soldiers departed before it arrived. When they arrived, Barras greeted the children, drove them down a back road to St.-Julien, and then led them across the fields to a customs post near Rougemont, on the Swiss border, where liaisons transferred them into Switzerland. Barras repeated this action with other groups of children but, well-acquainted with the procedures of the German soldiers, he advised Cohn to use a different route to bring them to Viry. Fournier was also mobilized for this purpose, and he escorted the children from Annemasse on May 31. His brother Raoul, recruited to assist them, rode his bicycle to the rendezvous point and continued following the truck.

As the children began to climb out of the truck, a car carrying German soldiers suddenly came by. The soldiers approached and ordered all the passengers to get out. In their interrogation, Cohn and Fournier explained that they were bringing the youngsters to a local orphanage; Raoul Fournier said he was on his way to the pharmacy. Barras, seeing what was happening, fled before the Germanscould arrest him. The others were interned and tortured (q.v. Deffaugt●); Marianne Cohn was also arrested, taken by members of the French militia, and murdered after being tortured and raped. On March 3, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Emile Barras as Righteous Among the Nations.

Beaufrère●, Pierre

Beaufrère●, Berthe, Doizieux (Loire)

Pierre and Berthe Beaufrère lived in Doizieux (Loire), a small village of some 400 inhabitants located in the Rhône-Alpes region, south of Saint-Étienne. They ran a small farm with a herd of sheep, rabbits and a vegetable garden. Pierre (b. 1893) and Berthe (b. 1911), who was divorced from her first husband, married in 1942. Their two children, Serge and Marie-France, were born after the end of the war. During the nine months of January-September 1944, the couple sheltered a ten-year-old Jewish boy, Bernard Hochman, who was in danger of arrest and deportation. Bernard was the son of Moschko Hochman, a carpenter who had emigrated from Poland to Paris in 1924. Moschko, his wife and Bernard lived in the Parisian Carpenters' Quarter in Faubourg Saint-Antoine. At the outbreak of the war, Moschko was mobilized in the French army as a foreign volunteer, and was discharged in September 1940. His wife and son had retreated to Nantes during the German invasion, but returned to Paris after the cease-fire. With the worsening of the anti-Jewish legislation, the Hochmans decided to leave Paris for the southern “free” zone. They settled in Saint-Étienne, where they lived with Moschko’s brother family. In the autumn of 1942, Moschko was assigned for forced labor to a group of foreign workers, Groupement de Travailleurs Étrangers. Fearing that he would be sent to Germany, Moschkko went underground and remained in hiding until liberation.

Bernard registered at a religious boarding school and later, through the social workers of L’Aide aux Mères in Saint-Étienne, to the nearby “Le Nid” children's home in Boën-sur-Lignon. “Le Nid” was directed by 20-year-old Marie-Antoinette Vial*, who sheltered a number of Jewish children. In January 1944, eight new Jewish children arrived at “Le Nid.” The home was now too overcrowded, and some children were sent to foster families, including Bernard. Through the intermediary of a priest, l’AbbéDuras*, Bernard ended up, under the false name of Hochier, with the Beaufrères. They warmly welcomed the boy into their home. He went to school, and helped with chores around the farm. In September 1944, he was reunited with his parents. On 16 March 2008 Yad Vashem recognized Pierre and Berthe Beaufrère as Righteous Among the Nations.

Adrien Benveniste (Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE). Marseilles

Bergon, Sister Denise, was principal of the Notre-Dame de Massip boarding school in Massip, département of Lot, in southwestern France.

File 1807 During the occupation, Sister Denise Bergon was principal of the Notre-Dame de Massip boarding school in Massip, a small town in the département of Lot, in southwestern France. In December 1942, Bergon began to use her school as a place of refuge for Jewish children whose parents had been deported or forced into hiding, thus saving eighty lives. Bergon also helped adult Jews and entire families. She hid eleven adults in her school and arranged alternative shelter for several Jewish families. Her activities had the blessing of Jean-Géraud Saliège (q.v.) the Archbishop of Toulouse. The children in Notre-Dame de Massip were given false identity papers and fictitious names and were dressed like Christian children. Only four sisters knew that the children were Jewish. The children attended classes regularly throughout their stay. Bergon believed that the separation from their families should not harm their education. Bergon gave the children warmth and love and created a homelike, calm atmosphere in her boarding school. Annie Bach was fifteen years old, in September 1942, when she and her parents were arrested. With the help of the underground, Bach escaped and went to Toulouse, where she was referred to the boarding school in Massip. Bergon herself traveled to Toulouse to fetch the girl, who was utterly alone. In her postwar testimony, Bach wrote the following: “When I arrived in Massip, there were already other children there. There were in all eighty or eighty-five whose lives were saved because a sister, Mme Bergon, was capable of showing energy, courage, and enough imagination to confront all dangers.

She, and only she, knew how to make decisions calmly at the most dangerous moments.” Nati Michel Fréjer, another Jewish child who found refuge in Bergon’s boarding school, subsequently wrote of his experience: “At the Massip pension, we felt like ordinary children. We went to school with the local peasants’ children and were evengiven piano lessons… Sister Bergon was always willing to listen to us, and she was the only one we went to when we had problems. ” Albert Seifer was eight years old and his sister was twelve years old when their mother brought them to the school in Massip, in the early summer of 1943; the two Jewish youngsters stayed there until June 1944. Albert later recalled that the boarding school had admitted refugees aged five to twenty and that life there was wonderful. The sisters were like adoptive parents, and all the children loved and admired Denise Bergon. Hélène Oberman was taken to Massip in February 1943, and recalls that fifty to sixty children lived there in a warm and friendly environment. Bergon also helped the Jewish children remain in touch with their parents, who were in hiding. Despite the considerable danger, she took the Oberman children, Hélène and her brother, to visit their parents in their hiding place. The plight of French Jews worsened in 1943. The Germans conducted numerous raids in the Massip region. Bergon prepared the children for whatever might happen. At the slightest danger, they hid in the nearby fields and woods. Thus, at the risk of her own life, this nun managed to save a large number of Jews. In 1979, the French government awarded her the citation of the Legion of Honor for her activities during the occupation. On February 10, 1980, Yad Vashem recognized Denise Bergon as Righteous Among the Nations.

Birgy, Rolande●, the Jeunesse Ouvriére Chrétienne (JOC) in Annecy and in the vicinity of the Swiss border.

Boillot●, André Boillot●, Suzanne Ridart●, Adolphe Ridart●, Jeanne●

File 6089

Adolphe Ridart, his wife Jeanne, their twenty-one-year-old daughter Suzanne, and her husband, André Boillot, lived in Marseilles. In August 1940, André Boillot joined an underground group that became the nucleus of the Resistance in the south and later was called Combat. At this early stage of the occupation, the group devoted itself chiefly to obtaining forged papers for fugitives from the authorities, including Jews, and especially for foreigners. As the network expanded its activities, it also obtained advance warning of roundups in Marseilles from gendarmes who belonged to the underground. The Ridarts were particularly close friends of the Benvenistes, Jews originally from Salonika, who had immigrated to southern France many years before the war. Albert Benveniste was in his early sixties and in poor health; his wife Isabelle was ten years younger. When the Germans entered Marseilles on November 12, 1942, M. and Mme Benveniste were alone—their older son had joined Resistance fighters in the region, their younger son was in a prisoner of war camp in Germany. The Germans established their main headquarters directly across from the Benvenistes’ home and placed the entire area under close surveillance. Suzanne Boillot, the Ridarts’ daughter, rushed to the Benvenistes’ apartment and persuaded them that it was too dangerous to remain there. They immediately followed her to her parents’ home, without taking any baggage.

The Benvenistes spent about two weeks with the Ridarts and then left for Nice, which, until September 1943, was under Italian control. Suzanne accompanied them to the home of friends who were willing to take them in. When the Germans entered Nice, the Benvenistes decided to return to Marseilles. Suzanne Boillot traveled to Nice to escort them back, bringing her parents’ identity papers for the Benvenistes’ use. The trip was extremely dangerous. The railroad stationin Marseilles was patrolled around the clock, and if the documents were inspected too closely, the subterfuge would be uncovered. In order to lessen the risks, Suzanne’s husband came to the terminal wearing a porter’s uniform. When the train from Nice pulled into to the platform, he was ready with a porter’s trolley. When the Benvenistes and Suzanne disembarked from the train, Boillot found them and placed M. Benveniste and the luggage in the trolley. Then, accompanied by Mme Benveniste and his wife Suzanne, he approached a gendarme and asked for a Red Cross first-aid station, because he had to bring a sick person there. Without suspecting, the gendarme pointed him in the right direction, and in that manner the Benvenistes and their rescuers left the terminal without hindrance. The Benvenistes stayed in The Ridarts’ house for about eight months until Suzanne obtained an entry visa to Portugal for them. She escorted them on the train to Toulouse, and from there, they proceeded to the border withouth incident. On May 10, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Adolphe and Jeanne Ridart, their daughter Suzanne, and son-in-law André Boillot as Righteous Among the Nations.

Bonhoure, Roger●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Christian Fellowship (Amitié Chrétienne) and the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Borel, René●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, and the Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Borel●, Marie-Françoise

André Chouraqui Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Marianne Cohen* (Jewish) Leader Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE). Murdered.

Marie Dauphin-Debise (Madame Bourrat) ●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

De Courrèges d’Ustou●, Monsignor Louis, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

On July 8, 1980, Yad Vashem recognized Monsignor Louis de Courrèges d’Ustou as Righteous Among the Nations.

Deffaugt, Jean●, Deffaut Rescue Network

Abbot Antoine Dumas*, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE). Set up a rescue network for Jewish children, helped the three escape to a welfare association in Périgueux (Dordogne).

l’Abbé Duras see Pierre● and Berthe Beafrere●

Fournier, Joseph●, lived in Viry, a village in the département of Haute-Savoie,

File 6755a Joseph Fournier (b. 1921) lived in Viry, a village in the département of Haute-Savoie, about five kilometers from the Swiss border. The family had a wholesale grocery business and a truck that they used for deliveries. During the occupation, Joseph and his brother joined the underground, notably offering to help smuggle groups of Jewish children to Switzerland. He helped Emile Barras● (q.v.), who knew the border very well. Groups of children, assembled by the underground organizations of the Jewish Scouts and the Zionist youth movement, would get off the train in Annemasse. On May 31, 1944, a group of thirty-two Jewish children, aged 3-18, arrived from Limoges. Marianne Cohen*, their Jewish counselor, instructed them to climb aboard Joseph Fournier’s truck, which was parked outside the railroad station. Fournier drove the children to the outskirts of Viry, to the planned meeting with Barras, who was to take them over the border on foot. German border guards stopped the truck and rejected Fournier’s explanations about the children inside. The children were returned to Annemasse and imprisoned, along with Cohen and Fournier, in a Gestapo prison. Fournier was tortured for three weeks and then released, thanks to members of his network, who managed to put pressure on a police officer from nearby St.-Julien. Marianne Cohen was murdered by the French militia. The children were saved thanks to Jean Deffaugt●, the mayor of Annemasse (q.v). On September 10, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Joseph Fournier as Righteous Among the Nations.

Jeanne Frenkel, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE). see file 6089 Andre Boillot● and Adolf Ridart●.

Abbe Alexander Glasberg● Amitié Chrétienne; (Christian Friendship) Children’s Aid Rescue Society, (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE; Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network)

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.

Guy, Marinette●

Vidal, Juliette● File 518

During the German occupation, Marinette Guy● and Juliette Vidal● ran the Aide aux Mères, a well-baby clinic in the town of Saint-Etienne. As former Scouts, the two became friendly with members of the Jewish Scouts, several of whom were active in La Sixième, the Scout’s underground organization, while others were active in OSE. Because of their friendship with the Jewish Scouts, Guy and Vidal took part in many rescue operations of children. They turned their clinic into a social center and hostel for activists in La Sixième and OSE. Guy and Vidal also assisted and arranged shelter for the parents of the Jewish children whom they rescued. Vidal and Guy looked after the Isboutskys’ two daughters. They also found modest accommodations for their parents in the Alps, not far from the children’s home where their daughters were placed. After the war, the older daughter, Fella Isboutsky, testified that she and her young sister, and other Jewish children, had been warmly welcomed at the children’s home. Jewish children, from six years old and up, attended an elementary school in the nearby town of Chamonix. A counselor made sure that they recited Shema Yisrael (Jewish prayer) each morning. On Friday night, the children were gathered in a separate corner, where they lit candles and sang Sabbath songs. During Hanukka of 1943, Guy and Vidal visited the home and brought presents and candles to the Jewish children. In June 1944, ten of the children were driven to the Spanish border, smuggled into the Principality of Andorra, and then to Spain.

From there they immigrated to Palestine. Among the children in this group were the three Einhorn sisteres, Berthe (later Batia Maayan), Tony (later Aliashar) and Nelly (later Nurit Reuvinof). Guy and Vidal’s nobility and resourcefulness is evident in another incident: Rabbi Samy Klein, who had delivered several lectures in the “club” at the Aide aux Mères in Saint-Etienne, was arrested andmurdered in June 1944, by the French militia. Guy and Vidal looked after the rabbi’s widow, who was left with two small children, and moved her to a safe hiding place. On January 2, 1969, Yad Vashem recognized Marinette Guy and Juliette Vidal as Righteous Among the Nations.

Gaudefroy, Pauline Renée●, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Herail●, Eugénie (Mother Augustin)

Robert Job, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Ruth Lambert, (Gurs camp) Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Germaine Masour, Garel Network Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Poirier, Pierrette● File 1484e, Garel Network Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Robert, Jean-Baptiste●, Garel Network Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Roques●, Marguerite, (Sister) convent of Notre-Dame-de-Massip in Capdenac, in the département of Lot.

File 1807b

Under the patronage of Monsignor Saliège● (q.v.), the Archbishop of Toulouse, the clergy of his diocese made huge efforts to save Jewish children. The Sainte Germaine summer camp, held annually during school vacations for Catholic children from poor families, under the direction of Louise Thèbe● (q.v.) was involved in this effort. The camp was located in the convent of Notre-Dame-de-Massip in Capdenac, in the département of Lot. In 1942, the convent housed a school with a small boarding facility. The school was hard-pressed financially; initially its dormitory lacked running water, heating, and telephones. During the year, about twelve external students lived at the school, but the four dormitories had a capacity for sixty. The first five Jewish youngsters reached the school during the Christmas recess in December 1942. Most of the fifteen nuns in residence were not told the secret. The exceptions were Denise Bergon● (q.v.), the housemother; the Mother Superior of the convent; and Marguerite Roques, who taught arithmetic and was in charge of administration and student affairs. The chaplain of the convent was also told. The children attended Sunday mass so as not to arouse the other nuns’ and staff members’ suspicions. Bishop Saliège instructed the Mother Superior: “Make no attempt to convert the children. Tell lies whenever you need to. I grant you absolution for everything in advance.” To account for their strong foreign accent, the Jewish children were introduced as refugees from Lorraine.

For those who knew their true identity and the traumas they had suffered, they “became our own children, whom we decided to save at any price and return to their families alive.” More Jewish children came to the school in the Easter recess of 1943, bringing the total to about thirty. Through various stratagems, these youngsters had been extricated from internment camps in the southwest and the vicinity of Lyons after their parents were deported.By the summer of 1944, their numbers swelled to sixty-five. They were housed in the four convent dormitories; the adolescent girls were accommodated in the church cellar. The main problems facing the nuns were the children’s safety, upkeep and education. Four of the youngsters who found refuge in Massip were fifteen-year-old Denise Hervichon, fifteen-year-old Annie Beck, eight-year-old Albert Seifer, and Albert’s twelve-year-old sister Berthe. All the children hidden in the convent returned safely to Toulouse after the war. On July 8, 1980, Yad Vashem recognized Marguerite Roques as Righteous Among the Nations.

Charlotte Rosenbaum, Garel Network Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Odette Rosenstock, Garel Network Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Julien Samuel, Les Milles camp; Marseilles Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Vivette Samuel-Hermann, Rivesaltes camp; Les Milles camp; Lyon Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Stolze-Coqué, Simone●, Le Circuit Garel, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Thèbe, Louise●

File 1807a

On August 23, 1942, the Archbishop of Toulouse, Monsignor Jules Saliège● (q.v.) published a pastoral letter that was read in all Catholic churches in the Toulouse area and provoked many responses. Saliège urged Christians to help Jews and withhold their support from antisemitic persecution and hatred. He declared clearly: “They are our brothers like so many others. A Christian may not forget it.” This was an official manifesto by a Catholic bishop who until then had maintained a silence that was largely interpreted as consent. He was reacting to the mass arrests and deportations of the summer. Henceforth, the archbishop was to encourage operations for the rescue of Jewish children, including those removed more or less legally from the camps in the south of France and whose parents had disappeared or were about to be deported. He instructed the people in charge of church institutions to assist in these rescue operations, including the director of l’Oeuvre Sainte Germaine, Louise Thèbes. She made use of the convent school of Notre-Dame de Massip in Capdenac. Before the war, the school had few pupils from outside the area, and twelve of the sixty beds were sufficient for them. During the summer, the facility was used for a summer camp, known as Colonie Sainte-Germaine, which was organized in Toulouse by Louise Thèbe. She recruited children from devout Catholic families of modest means and escorted them to the convent in Capdenac. After the summer vacation, the children returned home.

Following Archbishop Saliège’s manifesto, the school at Massip adopted a new purpose as Thèbe delivered Jewish children to the facility; a few at first, in larger numbers as the situation in the south worsened. Thèbe began her rescue work in late 1942, and by 1944 her school was providing refuge for nearly sixty-five Jewish pupils, and several adults who hid in the convent for short periods. Several nuns, including the director of the camp, Sister Denise Bergon● (q.v.) knew about the project as well as some of the teachers, including Marguerite Roques● (q.v.). To avoid attracting attention, the children were given new names upon their arrival and required to participate in Sunday mass. Four of the youngsters who found refuge in Massip were fifteen-year-old Denise Hervichon, fifteen-year-old Annie Beck, eight-year-old Albert Seifer, and his twelve-year-old sister Berthe. After the war, Hervichon testified that the convent “lacked running water, heating, and a telephone. Massip was a small religious boarding school of very modest means. The table was frugal, but we adjusted to it very well. All of us, children and adolescents, never ceased feeling safe, even happy, and especially loved.” All the children hidden in the convent returned safely to Toulouse after the war. On July 8, 1980, Yad Vashem recognized Louise Thèbe as Righteous Among the Nations.

Vial,● Marie-Antoinette (Flatry)

File 4540 The Bloch family, a couple with nine children, lived in Strasbourg until the beginning of World War II, when they were evacuated to Cusset (Allier), a suburb of Vichy. In August 1942, as the arrests of Jews spread to the southern zone, Emmanuel Bloch decided that the time had come to go into hiding. Jewish and French underground organizations helped Bloch obtain identification papers in which the surname Bloch was changed to Roche. The family was too large to hide together in one place, so it was split up. Emmanuel, his wife, their eldest daughter Dina, and their youngest son moved east to St.-Etienne; three teen-aged children were sent to boarding schools; and four younger children, aged five to ten, were referred to Le Nid, an institution in Boën, in the département of Loire. This institution, run by Marie-Antoinette Vial, was established to accommodate refugee children who had fled from German-annexed areas and towns bombarded by the Allies. The referrals were made by Aide aux Mères, an organization in St.-Etienne headed by two women: Juliette Vidal● (q.v.) and Marinette Guy● (q.v.). Marie-Antoinette Vial, only twenty years old at the time, accepted Jewish children, too. The Boën vicinity was under the constant surveillance of German troops and French gendarmes, because the area harbored French Resistance fighters and a factory that did work for the Wehrmacht. Despite these dangers, Vial ensured the children’s safety and education until the town was liberated in August 1944.

With sublime modesty, Vial emphasized that without the good counsel and efficient help of the local priest, the school principal, and local merchants, she would not have succeeded in her mission. Dina, the eldest of the Blochs’ nine children, aged sixteen-and-a-half in 1942, visited her siblings in the institution every month and, after the war, testified to Vial’s devoted care and especially impressive character. On June 20, 1990, Yad Vashemrecognized Marie-Antoinette Vial (née Flatry), as Righteous Among the Nations

Huguette Wahl, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Marseilles, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Dr. Joseph Weill, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Nîmes camp; Limoges; Geneva, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Nicole Salon-Weill*, (Garel Network, Marseilles, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Simon Weill, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Reinette; Rivesaltes camp, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Dr. Rene Zimmer, Le Circuit Garel, Garel Network, Marseilles, Children’s Relief Organization (OSE).

Organization for Reconstruction through Labor (ORT)

Polish Red Cross

M. Somborsky (YMCA)