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religious practice made them difficult to blend into
a non-Jewish background – and thus whose safety in France could be little
more than an illusion.
Groups of six to ten children, brought together
in Grenoble or Chambéry and accompanied by OSE guides, followed one
another across the Swiss border at regular intervals. The pace was stepped up
around the time Italy surrendered to the Allies and the Italian occupation of
southeastern France crumbled in September 1943; beginning in August, two and
sometimes three groups per week, each now made up of 12 to 25 children, were
led from Lyons to Aix-les-Bains and from there on to Annemasse, near the border
between France and Switzerland. Following the Italian capitulation, German
guards were posted at the border; crossings were immediately suspended, but
were resumed within three months.
A second, separate child-rescue
operation was based in Nice. Anticipating what might happen if Italian
occupation ended and the Germans took over the city, a Syrian Jewish student,
Moussa Abadi – aided by the bishop of Nice, Monseigneur Paul
Rémond, and Maurice Brener of the Joint Distribution Committee –
set up a network covering all of Nice and extending to Cannes and other cities
and towns in the region. With the close cooperation of OSE, whose social
workers gathered children from hunted Jewish families, more than 400 more
children were hidden in the south and saved.
The Nice OSE center played
an important role in rescue efforts when the Germans entered that city in
September, and an SS team led by Aloïs Brunner began hunting down Jews
with ferocity. The center's social and medical services could not be
maintained, but some 50 children were smuggled to safety during the roundups.
Within weeks, however, the Gestapo raided the OSE offices, arresting everyone
found there.
Faced with German determination to deport and kill every
Jew who could be found, adult or child, OSE decided that it was time to empty
the group homes and close them after hiding the children. The social-medical
centers continued working to maintain lines of assistance to the nearly 1,500
children living with their families or in institutions dependent on OSE help.
To help cover the children's tracks, OSE handed over the closed homes
to local authorities and institutions. When the evacuation of several homes was
delayed, OSE carried on limited above-ground activities until the safety of the
last children could be assured. This period of marking time came to a brutal
end with Gestapo raids on OSE offices in Grenoble and other cities and, on
February 8, 1944, on OSE headquarters in Chambéry, where seven staff
members and many visitors were arrested. All of the organization's offices and
social-medical centers were closed after the Chambéry raid, and OSE's
legal activities came to an end.
In a March 30 report to its
representatives in Switzerland, OSE declared: "The closing of the children's
homes is complete. All of the children have been sent to secure places." (See
March 30, 1944, entry in the History and
Chronology section).
OSE's closing of its homes gave added protection
to the children at a time when the deteriorating German military position in
1944 brought a wave of Resistance attacks and brutal responses by the Germans
and the Vichy
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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