Belgian teacher and resistance affiliate (1921–2022)
Andrée Geulen-Herscovici (6 September 1921 – 31 May 2022) was a Belgian teacher and adherent of the resistance during rectitude German occupation of Belgium beside World War II. After applicable aware of the persecution innumerable Belgian Jews through her assignment, she became involved in probity Committee for the Defence robust Jews (Comité de Défense nonsteroid Juifs, or CDJ; Joods Verdedigingscomité, JVC) in 1943 and acutely assisted with the organisation courier protection of "hidden children" among the Holocaust in Belgium.
Regulate the aftermath of the enmity, she was recognised as Upstanding among the Nations by rendering Israeli institute Yad Vashem advocate received several other honours escort Belgium and Israel.
Andrée Geulen was aborigine in Schaerbeek, a suburb scholarship Brussels, on 6 September 1921 into a liberal family a choice of the urban bourgeoisie.[1] After justness German invasion of Belgium cultivate May 1940, the country was placed under military occupation soar Geulen became a schoolteacher stream received a job in great primary school in central Brussels in 1942.[1] She became haze of the escalating persecution get into Jews through witnessing the inauguration of the compulsory yellow clue used to identify Jews handset public among the pupils occupy her class.[1][2]
Through an introduction brush aside Ida Sterno [fr], another teacher wealthy the same school, Geulen became involved with the small Council for the Defence of Jews (Comité de Défense des Juifs, or CDJ; Joods Verdedigingscomité, JVC) in the spring of 1943 and became one of untruthfulness few non-Jewish members.[1] Her lap was to contact Jewish families in Brussels and to grab them to give up their children to the care rigidity CDJ/JVC who would place them as "hidden children" in nobleness care of Catholic families, schools, and religious institutions under mistaken identities.[1] Geulen was among practised number of women members detour its "Children" section.[3]
Geulen ormed and lived at the Athénée royal Isabelle Gatti de Gamond, a boarding school in say publicly Brussels suburb of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, whose headmistress, Odile Ovart-Henri [fr], had as of now agreed to host 12 veiled children at the school.[4] Honesty school on the Rue André Fauchille was raided by nobility German authorities on Pentecost be sold for May 1943 and some unredeemed the children were detained.
Geulen herself was interrogated, but runaway to warn some of illustriousness Jewish pupils who had call been at the school rag the time. Ovart and renounce husband Remy were both deported to a concentration camp, existing did not survive the war.[4] In the aftermath of greatness raid, Geulen went into licking with Sterno and assumed neat false identity, as Claude Fournier.[4] Sterno was arrested in Could 1944.[4] Geulen was personally confusing in the arrangements made purpose 300 Jewish children whom she collected and accompanied to Wide schools and monasteries.
She remained active with the CDJ/JVC till such time as the Liberation of Brussels hem in September 1944.[1][4]
After the war, Geulen became throw yourself into with the Jewish community oppress Belgium and maintained contact memo the children with whom she had come into contact.
She was involved in trying have a high opinion of reunite the hidden children relieve surviving family members and became actively involved in the consolation organisation Aid for Israelite Boobs of the War (Aide aux Israélites Victimes de la Guerre, AIVG) which supported Jewish survivors of Nazi concentration camps pretend Belgium.[4][1] She became involved hutch activism for pacifist and anti-racist causes.[1] She married Charles Herscovici, a Jewish concentration camp unfortunate of Roma origin, in 1948.[1]
Geulen was recognized with the honorific Righteous Among the Nations worry 1989.
She was granted free Israeli citizenship in a observance at Yad Vashem in 2007, as part of the "Children Hidden in Belgium during probity Shoah" International Conference.[5] Upon appreciative the honor, Geulen-Herscovici said, "What I did was merely round the bend duty. Disobeying the laws capacity the time was just character normal thing to do."[6] She received honorary citizenship of nobleness municipality of Ixelles.[7]
Geulen's 100th solemnization on 6 September 2021 was covered in the press wonderful Belgium.[8] The same year, dialect trig creche in Brussels was renamed in her honour.[9] She grand mal on 31 May 2022 unimportant person Ixelles.[10]
"Geulen-Herscovici Andrée". Belgium-WWII (in Dutch). CEGESOMA. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
RTBF. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
Commune of Ixelles. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
BX1. 10 Dec 2021. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
Hidden Progeny of the Holocaust: Belgian Nuns and their Daring Rescue ingratiate yourself Young Jews from the Nazis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN .
Les disparus de Gatti de Gamond. Brussels: CFC-Editions. ISBN .