Hagnauer Yvonne

Hagnauer, Yvonne File 906 During the occupation, boarding schools for orphans and children of prisoners of war held by the Germans were opened throughout France. Yvonne Hagnauer, a teacher, directed a high school with a boarding facility in Sèvres, near Paris, and used her position to save dozens of Jewish children sought by the Germans. With great courage and resolve, Hagnauer endured hardships and dangers and provided the many children under her care with food, clothing, and forged papers. Despite the difficult times, she continued to maintain a high level of studies. After the mass roundups of Parisian Jews in the summer of 1942, many Jewish children were left on their own. Hagnauer found children crouching in the entrances to buildings with nowhere to go. She took them to her school. Thus, during the occupation, the Jewish population of the boarding school rose to seventy percent of the 150 children, aged three to eighteen. The Jewish children were given forged papers and told to hide their true identity. Yvonne Hagnauer recorded all the information about their families and stored it along with the children’s papers in a special safe. Immediately after the liberation, Hagnauer returned the documents to the children and reminded them of their real names and all other details pertaining to their identity. She helped the children regain their religious customs and, on Passover of 1945, sent those still at the boarding school to Jewish families for the seder. Hagnauer also hid Jewish adults in her boarding school under assumed names and employed them as teachers, counselors, and workers. One counselor, who had previously worked for the OSE and led groups of children to hiding places, was a young actor who later became the internationally famous mime Marcel Marceau (Mangel). In the spring of 1944, Mangel brought a group of children to the boarding school, after being unable to take them into Switzerland as planned. Hagnauer enrolled the whole group, mobilizedthe staff to look after them, and provided forged papers. One day, the future actor also brought her a sick girl who had to be hospitalized urgently. No hospital was willing to take her without papers. Despite the enormous risk, Yvonne Hagnauer went to the police and obtained the necessary authorizations. The boarding facility also took in three sisters, whose parents had been deported, and the girls had been shunted from institution to institution. Yvonne accepted them, although her establishment was full beyond capacity. One of the sisters, who was seven years old, suffered from malnutrition. Hagnauer looked after her lovingly and devotedly. The three girls remained in the school until 1945, when they left to live in Palestine. They continued to correspond with Hagnauer. Many of the Jewish children who had been admitted to the boarding facility were orphaned and had nowhere to go. They sometimes remained there after finishing their studies. Some even celebrated their weddings in the school. After the war, the French Government decorated the courageous school principal for her work in rescuing Christian and Jewish orphans. On September 10, 1974, Yad Vashem recognized Yvonne Hagnauer as Righteous Among the Nations.