Resnais Emīls

Resnais, Emīls Emīls Resnais (b. 1886) was the director of a children’s home located at Herman Street in Rīga. The director and his family, which included his wife, Anna, and two children, lived on the grounds of the children’s home. In October 1942, 11-year-old Inna Fridman was placed there by the department of Welfare. Inna’s documents stated that her mother was under arrest because she was suspected of being Jewish, and her father’s nationality was unknown (by then Inna’s father, Moses Fridman, had already perished). Upon the Welfare department recommendation the girl was supposed to be kept separately from the other children and that was done during the first weeks of her stay there. Then Inna was allowed to join the rest of the orphans. The director and his team treated Inna nicely and never interrogated her about her past. One day, when Inna asked Resnais why she was not attending school, as other children, he invited her into his office and showed her her original birth certificate, that stated that both of her parents were Jewish. He said that someone at school or in the street might recognize her and that was the proof of Jewish identity the German authorities stilled lacked. Following that conversation the director arranged a visiting teacher for Inna. When the front drew near Rīga, the local orphanages were ordered to move westward. Resnais was the only one that did not obey the order but hid the children in abandoned buildings until October 15, 1944, when the Red Army forces fully entered the city. Inna remained in the children’s home until 1945, when her aunt found her. Her mother, Elsa Fridman, did not survive. Inna Fridman (later Michelson) kept in touch with Emils Resnais and his family until her immigration to Israel in 1971; in the 1990s those ties were renewed. On June 28, 1998, Yad Vashem recognized Emīls Resnais as Righteous Among the Nations.