Starting in 1942, networks such as the André network, the Garel network, and, later in 1943, the Marcel network also worked to save Jewish children.
On February 16, 1943, on Lamarck Street in Paris, at a shelter run bythe General Union of French Jews (UGIF), dozens of children were smuggled out to save them from imminent deportation. This exemplary operation was carried out successfully thanks to the coordinated efforts led by Paul Vergara, pastor of the Oratoire du Louvre in Paris, Sophie Schwartz on behalf of the Union of Jewish Women, and Suzanne Spaak for the National Movement Against Racism (MNCR).
From Drancy, sick Jewish patients—both adults and children—were transferred toRothschild Hospital before their deportation. Healthcare workers organized escape routes for the hospitalized children. In retaliation, members of the hospital staff were deported by the Nazis.
Rescue efforts are certainly few and far between, but throughout France, groups and individuals—often anonymous—are working to save lives.
The support of the local population proved indispensable to the rescuers in evading arrest and hiding the children in the countryside. Those who later came to be known as the Righteous are the non-Jewish French who, at the risk of their own lives, hid and saved Jewish adults and children—whether through the efforts of entire villages or through individual or family initiatives in various regions of the country.
Generally speaking, the MNCR and the Jewish section of the M.O.I. had three objectives: to protect and rescue Jewish children, to inform the country about Nazi barbarism, and to liberate France from the occupying forces.
