Yvonne Nevéjean

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Yvonne Feyerick Nevéjean (? - 1987) was one of the leaders of an organisation that helped hide Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Belgium during World War II. She was instrumental in hiding about 4000 children, many with Catholic families and institutions. After the war she was honoured inside and outside Belgium. In 1965, she was designated as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, and in 1996 a stamp was issued in Belgium bearing her image.

Nevéjean headed the National Agency for Children (Oeuvre Nationale de l'Enfance; ONE), an organization that operated a network of children's homes throughout Belgium. The Nazis began to deport Belgian Jews in the summer of 1942. At that time Nevéjean was approached by the Comité de Défence des Juifs en Belgique, Belgium's main Jewish underground organization (founded in 1942 by Hertz Jospa), and asked to rescue Jewish children separated from their parents. Acting essentially on her own, Nevéjean agreed to have ONE place children with families and in institutions in order to protect them. Ultimately, she saved the lives of some 4,000 Jewish children.

The Jewish underground financed Nevéjean's extensive rescue operation, but when their funds were not sufficient, Nevéjean found funding from banks and from the London based Belgian government in exile. The Gestapo tried to stop Nevejean's operations, and arrested some rescuers and rescuees, but they were generally unsuccessful due to the brave stand made by Nevéjean and other Belgians, such as the Queen Mother Elizabeth and Leon Platteau of the Belgian Ministry of Justice, also designated "Righteous Among The Nations" by Yad Vashem.

A Belgian priest, Father Joseph André, of Namur was also prominent in this movement.

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