Today is the Journée Internationale des drugs des femmes (International Women’s Day). In this year of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, it seems suitable for paying tribute to French women who opposed tyranny and oppression.
Many women contributed countless ways to the final victory. Some have reached lasting fame, others will remain forever in anonymity. Some of their stories came to light only after the end of the war.
Today, I want to focus on three women in our region who made a difference. His selfless actions saved more than 80 Jewish children and a boxes of capture, deportation and almost safe death in concentration camps.
Adjustment restrictions
As the network adjusted around Jewish people in the so -called “free zone”, and the Vichy regime passed increasingly strict anti -Jewish laws, some brave souls faced them. Archbishop Jules-Géraud Saliège or Toulouse was one of the few or bishops that protested by Vichy’s Jewish politics.
Via Wikimedia Commons
23RD August 1942, Saliège asked all clergymen in his archdiocese to read a letter of condemnation of anti -Jewish policy to his congregations. Saliège opposed armed resistance, but continued to protest against the treatment of Jews. The trial escaped in June 1944 due to the state of his health.
Hidden
Krzysztof Golik through Wikimedia Commons.
Denise Bergon was a superior mother of the Notre-Dame convent of Massip in Capdenac-Gare (Aveyron). Having heard the message of the Archbishop, she and Marguerite Roques, another nun, decided to hide Jewish children among Catholic students in the Convent’s boarding school. She worked with Louise Thèbes, director of the Social Services Organization of the Diocese or Toulouse. Louise Thèbes helped hide hundreds or Jewish people to World War II.
Sister Denise shared this decision with only a few people to avoid endangering the lives of her nuns. However, lying about the children worried their conscience. Unable to consult his own bishop or Rodez, who was Pétainiste, he wrote to the archbishop. Hey replied: “Vous aurez à Loy, mind maid toutes les fois that Cela will be Nquisesaire, his vous donne par advance toutes month absoluteions.(You will have to lie, so lie when necessary, I give you all my absute in advance).
Sister Denise gathered children who had been hidden around Aveyron. The resistance guides other children to the convent, often supporting heartbreaking and dangerous trips. The nuns provided them with a new identity and said that mostly Alsacia-Lorena refugees. Denise Bergon explained his lack of familiarity with Catholic rites by pretending that of communist families.
Many arrived with money and jewelry. Sister Denise hid the value objects and documents in safe places around the convent. As the war progressed and the raids increased, the potential commitment in the hidden in a deep hole in the garden.
Growing risks
Since the beginning of 1944, as the probability of an allied invasion increased, the dangers for children and nuns intensified. The SS Das Reich division arrived in the region, after having fought on the eastern front. An agitated resistant He arrived at the convent one day at the end of May with the news that someone had denounced the nuns. Sister Denise decided to hide removable children.
Local families housed some children. Seven others had to hide for five days in a small space under the chapel to which a Kapdoor accesses. Heavy benches covered the stairs. Toke peales between the invaders and the resistance in the streets of Capdenac, but no one entered the convent. All the children survived.
After Normandy landings, Das Reich moved north to try to drive back to the allies. As the liberation of southern France, they progressively place, the children left the convent. Many of them had lost their parents and brothers to the Holocaust. Sister Denise returned the money and the value objects she had hidden.
Yad Vashem then recognized the three women: Denise Bergon, Marguerite Roques and Louise Thèbes, as fair among nations. Annie and Hélène Beck were among the children protected in the convent. They contacted Denise Bergon, who died in 2006. Annie paid tribute to the nuns who saved them.
Unfortunately, I can’t find photos of women that I can use here without violating copyright. However, you can see the two nuns in later life in the presentation of a monument in the convent in the file below (verified file for viruses, etc.).
These women had the courage of their convictions, regardless of their own personal security. There are innumerable other examples of this son of quiet heroism, a duration of a dark period for the world. Many of the people involved have become unknown and unknown. They simply did what they knew it was correct.
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