Meunier Jean

Meunier, Jean File 6091a From the mid-1930s, the family of Dr. Moscovici, Jews from Romania, lived in the village of Vernoil in the département of Maine-et-Loire. Dr. Moscovici was well known in the village, and by the summer of 1942 his brothers and his wife’s brother, who had previously lived in Paris, had joined him. None of them had French citizenship. On the night of July 15, 1942, French gendarmes arrested Moscovici and two of his brothers, among 824 Jews arrested in the area that night. They were sent from Angers, the département capital, straight to Auschwitz. About six weeks later, the gendarmes returned to complete the deportation. They arrested Mme Moscovici, who at the last moment was able to place her two children, aged two and six, with neighbors. She herself eluded the gendarmes and fled. She and her family were helped by Odette Bergoffen (q.v.) and Jean Meunier, a member of the Resistance. Meunier, the owner of a printing press in Angers, had founded the newspaper La Nouvelle République. By late 1941, he was in contact with several leaders of the Resistance and asked to be actively involved. In October 1942, Henri Ribière (q.v.), the general secretary of the Libération Nord underground, instructed him to set up a base for resistance activities in the neighboring département of Indre-et-Loire. Meunier regularly used his printing press to produce forged identity cards, ration booklets, and various permits, which he gave to persons in need. Mme Moscovici used such an identity card, conveyed to her through Odette Bergoffen, to cross the demarcation line to the southern zone. Her children, who remained in the village for a while, were later arrested, sent to Drancy, released through herculean efforts, and smuggled out of Paris by Bergoffen. The children spent several weeks hiding in Meunier’s home. He supplied forged papers from his printing press and transferred them to a safe haven. After the war, the surviving Moscovicis returned to Vernoil. Dr.Moscovici was one of the few survivors of Auschwitz. His two brothers, who were sent with him, perished. On May 10, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Jean Meunier as Righteous Among the Nations.