Beuzon Michel & Colette

Beuzon, Colette Beuzon, Michel File 4669 Michel Beuzon, an engineer, worked in an ammunition factory in Paris, where he resided. During the occupation, his factory was transferred from Paris to Caussade, a town in the département of Tarn-et-Garonne in southwestern France. Beuzon and his family resettled nearby. The Beuzons regularly invited acquaintances to their new country home. Since Colette was a pianist, their guests included musicians and intellectuals, Beuzon, a liberal who opposed the defeatist Vichy regime, had many Jewish friends. During the war, he gave temporary shelter to people on the run, especially Jews who had escaped from the nearby Septfonds camp. They stayed with him until they could find long term hiding places. In 1941-1943 the Beuzons saved Frederic Pollak’s life by sheltering him from time to time, whenever he needed a place to hide. They never demanded payment. They also provided temporary refuge to several of Michel’s Jewish co-workers. The Beuzons expressed their sympathies with the French underground by helping Denise Lévy, an activist in the French scouts’ underground organization, and by hiding Jewish children in their home until they could be taken to safe refuge. Mme Buisson, a Jewish woman who had fled Paris after the arrests in the summer of 1942, was sheltered with the Beuzons until the liberation. Michel Beuzon had to be particularly cautious because his boss openly sympathized with the Vichy regime. No one knew that he was hiding Jews in his home. He camouflaged his activity so effectively that even Otto Giniewski, a Jewish chemist who worked in the ammunition factory under an assumed name, knew nothing about the people he met in Beuzon’s home. On June 24, 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Michel and Colette Beuzon as Righteous Among the Nations.