By Michael Horovitz - June 3, 2022
Andrée Geulen-Herscovici, a teacher from Belgium who helped save approximately 1,000 Jewish children during the Holocaust, died on Wednesday in Ixelles, Belgium, aged 101 years old.
As a young teacher, Geulen-Herscovici was disturbed by the Nazi occupation of her hometown of Brussels when Jewish students arrived at her school wearing yellow stars. She told her students — both Jewish and non-Jewish — to come to school wearing aprons to cover the symbol.
The discriminatory Nazi policies prompted Geulen-Herscovici to join the rescue organization Comité de Défence des Juifs (Jewish Defense Committee) in 1942. There, she met the Jewish activist Ida Sterno, who needed a non-Jewish person to assist her in rescue efforts.
Geulen-Herscovici was among several non-Jewish women who were tasked by the rescue organization with quietly approaching Jewish families to suggest they give up their children to hide them. She also transferred children between various hiding places.
“It was the hardest thing to do, not telling a mother where I was taking her son,” Geulen-Herscovici recalled in an interview.
Read More: Times of Israel