Andree Geulen-Herscovici

Andrée Geulen-Herscovici (born September 6, 1921) is a Belgian woman who, with others, rescued approximately 3,000 Jewish[1] children during the Holocaust.

In 1942, the then Ms. Geulen was working as a schoolteacher in Brussels when the Gestapo arrived to arrest the Jewish children. She decided to join Jewish rescue organization Comité de Défense des Juifs. For more than two years, she moved Jewish children to live with Christian families and monasteries. She would continue to visit them and care for their needs. By keeping a secret record of the children's true identities, after the war she attempted to reunite them with their families if any survived.[2]

In 1989, Andrée Geulen was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations, and on April 18, 2007, she was granted honorary Israeli citizenship in a ceremony at Yad Vashem, as part of the Children Hidden in Belgium During the Shoah International Conference.[3] Upon accepting the honor, Geulen-Herscovici said, "What I did was merely my duty. Disobeying the laws of the time was just the normal thing to do."[4]

References

  1. ↑ Melissa Weiss "Andree Guelen Herscovici, Belgium" The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
  2. ↑ Andrée Geulen | "Their Fate Will Be My Fate Too…" Teachers Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust An online exhibition by Yad Vashem. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
  3. ↑ Belgian who Rescued 3000 Children to Receive Honorary Citizenship at Yad Vashem Ceremony Tomorrow, Yad Vashem, April 17, 2007
  4. ↑ Woman honored for saving kids from Nazis, Aron Heller, Associated Press, April 18, 2007

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