Durand Edmond

Houpe, François Durand, Edmond François Houpe was the principal of the vocational school of Castres (Tarn), which also took in boarders. Edmond Durand, a young supervisor, was in charge of the dormitories. In October 1943, at the beginning of the school year, the principal admitted eleven new boarders aged twelve to eighteen. Together with the supervisor, he presented them as refugees from the Alsace region. They were, however, the sons of Jews who had immigrated to France. Eight came from a shelter run by the French Jewish scouts (EIF) in Moissac (Tarn et Garonne) while the three others were from the OSE home in chateau Chabannes (Creuse). These two institutions had been closed in the autumn of 1943 for security reasons. The newcomers had been given false identities. They spent an uneventful school year in Castres. Two “Alsacian” boarders, Simha Arom and Georges Wajnberg, were enrolled at the nearby primary school where they completed primary school. Bernard Kaliksztejn was awarded a diploma in the carpentry section of the vocational school. However, on June 1, 1944, the regional authorities closed the boarding school. Youngsters whose parents lived in the area simply went home but the Jewish refugees were returned to the underground operatives of the EIF and OSE. Georges Wajnberg, who was the youngest, was sheltered and hidden by Edmond Durand in the home he shared in Dourgnes with his mother and his grandmother, both widows. “I shall never forget the affection the three of them lavished on me,” wrote Georges later. “He was so young himself; then there was Madame Alice, his mother, a good and generous woman, and Madame Léontine the grandmother. I was fed, clothed, pampered and protected.” Georges corresponded for many years with the family who welcomed him for four months, at a time when, as he later discovered, his own parents had been killed at Auschwitz. François Houpe, who had saved Jewish children, fought heroically in the Resistance and was asculptor. After the war, he was elected mayor of Castres. On August 2, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized François Houpe and Edmond Durand as Righteous Among the Nations. File 8530