Osterberger Louise

Osterberger, Louise File 7444 During the occupation, Louise Osterberger lived in Laignes (Côte d’Or) with three of her six children. Osterberger was born in 1890 in Munster (Alsace), which was then part of Germany. Having attended the local school, she was fluent in German, and the local population and the occupation authorities often asked her to serve as an interpreter. She showed great courage and more than once she persuaded the Germans to renounce reprisals or collective punishments. Her daughter Suzanne, a domestic for Dr. Bourgeois in Paris, came to her mother’s home in the spring of 1943 with Jacqueline Schochat, a five-year-old Jewish girl. Jacqueline’s father had been arrested in 1941 and deported in the first transport to Auschwitz, where he perished. At the request of the girl’s mother, Dr. and Mme Bourgeois took young Jacqueline into their home. However, fearing for her life, they asked Suzanne to take the girl to her mother Louise, who lived in the country. Louise gave Jacqueline a warm welcome, pampered her as she would her own daughter, and after the liberation returned her to her mother. One of Osterberger’s sons fought in the Resistance. She sent parcels to him and his comrades and supported the Resistance in intelligence activities. On January 6, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Louise Osterberger as Righteous Among the Nations.