Dubois Maurice

Dubois, Maurice In the 1930s, Maurice Dubois, a conscientious objector, was not inducted into the Swiss army. When World War II broke out, he established Secours Suisse aux Enfants in Toulouse, France, to take care of refugee children. By 1940, the Secours Suisse branch in southern France had become part of the Swiss Red Cross. Ruth Tamir, Margot Kern, Peter Salz, and Aliza Domka were German Jewish children whose parents had sent them to Belgium after Kristallnacht to assure their survival. In May 1940, when Germany invaded Belgium, these children, along with another hundred, all originally German Jews, fled to France. After wandering from city to city, under difficult conditions, lacking everything, they were placed in the care of Secours Suisse. The children were taken to Château de la Hille in the département of Ariège. In an old building, which had been renovated to receive them, they were well nourished and well treated and regained the love of life. The oldest of the children were given chores. Maurice Dubois, sometimes accompanied by his wife- Eleonore Dubois- Imbelli, visited the young refugees regularly. He took an interest in them and asked them questions. The children all loved Dubois and viewed him as their savior. They spent two years in relative safety, but in August 1942, when roundups of Jews without French citizenship began in the region, those over the age of 15 were arrested and taken to the detention camp at Vernet. Aliza Domka was one of those arrested. After the war, she testified that Maurice Dubois took personal responsibility for those arrested and managed to have them set free. He went to Vichy, negotiated with Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and threatened summarily to discontinue Secours Suisse’s placement of undernourished French children in Red Cross summer camps in Switzerland. Dubois was bluffing. He was not empowered to stop this large-scale enterprise, and he knew that the Red Cross would not support him. However, the ruse succeeded and Dubois obtained the release of the young Jews, returning with them to Château de la Hille. Meanwhile, his wife, Ellen had not been inactive. She had gone to see the head of the Red Cross in Bern, Switzerland, and demanded that he arrange to have all the Jewish children in Secours Suisse institutions admitted to Switzerland. The Red Cross rejected her request, and it became clear both to Dubois and to Rose Naef* (see volume France), the director of the La Hille institution, that youngsters aged 15 and over were no longer safe in the chateau. Against his superiors’ wishes and in violation of French law, Dubois had the children smuggled into Switzerland, endangering himself by supporting the people who carried out this hazardous mission. Dozens of Jewish young people owe their lives to him. On May 2, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Maurice Dubois as Righteous Among the Nations.