Œuvre de secours aux enfants, commonly abbreviated as OSE, is a French Jewish humanitarian organization that saved hundreds of Jewish refugee children in Vichy France during World War II.
The original OZE (Obshchetsvo Zdravookhraneniya Yevreyiev, Organisation for the health protection of Jews), was created in 1912 in Saint Petersburg by doctors, to help needy members of the Jewish population. Branches were established in other countries. In 1923 the organization relocated in Berlin, under the presidency of Albert Einstein. In 1933, fleeing Nazism, it relocated again, this time to France where it became the Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants (Society for Rescuing Children), retaining a similar acronym.
The OSE ran orphanages for Jewish children of various ages, including infants, whose parents were either in Nazi concentration camps or had been killed.
In March 1939, several transports brought German Jewish children to France. Other children arrived either on their own or were brought by relatives. By May 1939, the OSE homes held more than 200 refugee children.
The children were schooled and trained according to their age. To prepare children for possible future dangers, the OSE teachers paid special attention to physical education and survival skills.
A 1999 documentary "The Children of Chabannes" by filmmakers Lisa Gossels and Dean Wetherell is about one such home, Château de Chabannes, in a small village of Chabannes, where 400 Jewish children were saved from the Holocaust.
In June-September 1941, three transports brought about 200 children from the OSE homes to the United States. They were sponsored by the United States Committee for the Care of European Children, The Jewish Children's Aid, and assisted by the American Friends (Quakers) Service Committee in Marseilles.[1]
In 1942, the police began round ups and deportations from the orphanages to Nazi concentration and extermination camps, and the OSE organized underground network in order to smuggle the children to neutral countries. Some children were saved by French rescuers, and some joined French resistance.
List of OSE children's homes in France during World War II:[2][3][4]