Besnard Elizabeth

Besnard, Elizabeth File 7202 Elizabeth Besnard had gone to Russia to teach French and returned to France in 1917 after the outbreak of the revolution. She settled in Bezan Court (Seine-Maritime), and taught Russian there. In January 1943, the Protestant pastor Paul Vergara (q.v.) of Paris contacted her and asked her to conceal nine-year-old Denise Jaskiel in her home. In April of that year, he also sent Denise’s two-year-old sister, Monique, to Besnard. Juda Jaskiel, the girls’ father, was a Polish Jew. He had been arrested in Paris in August 1941 and deported to the Pithiviers camp, whence he was sent to Auschwitz in 1942. his wife had been placed in hiding at a residence for girls from wealthy families, where she worked as a cook. The parents survived. It took them some time to recover their apartment in the eleventh arrondissement, and they did not reclaim their two daughters until July 1946. Denise found it hard to part with Besnard, and subsequently she recalled that she and her sister had never known such happiness and love as their rescuer, Besnard, had lavished on them. Besnard also hid two Jewish families, the Bolenders and the Kiberlins, in her home until the spring of 1944, when they had to flee because the Wehrmacht billeted an officer and ten enlisted men in part of the house. Besnard continued to protect the two Jewish girls in one room of the house until the German forces retreated from Normandy, even though this placed her in mortal danger. Afterward, the Jaskiels insisted that their daughters must sever all girls contact with their rescuer. Denise never forgave herself for acceding to their wishes. On June 24, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Elizabeth Besnard as Righteous Among the Nations