Bonnafous Raoul & Albertine

Bonnafous, Albertine Bonnafous, Raoul File 7189 “Unwitting saints”—thus Nadine Bonnafous described her parents, Albertine and Raoul Bonnafous, of Lacaune (département of Tarn). The Wachskerz family—husband, wife, and two children—were German Jews who had moved to Belgium in 1938 and then relocated in Toulouse, France in May 1940. In March 1942, as Jews came under increasingly tougher control, the authorities sent the Wachskerzes to Lacaune, where they lived with the Bonnafous under police supervision. In August of that year, the French police arrested Jews in the town, including some who had settled there on their own initiative and others who had been sent there, like the Wachskerzes. M. and Mme Bonnafous heard of the impending arrests the previous evening, and in coordination with M. Vincent, the Protestant minister of Lacaune, moved the Wachskerzes under cover of darkness to the church belfry, which was adjacent to their yard. Immediately afterward, police visited the Bonnafous’ home, searched for Jews, and threatened to arrest Raoul and Albertine if the former did not divulge the whereabouts of their Jewish tenants by noon. The Bonnafous did not disclose their wards’ hideout and, for the next three weeks, secretly delivered three meals daily to the four fugitives through an opening at the rear of the church. Then, with the assistance of the Lacaune railroad station manager, they arranged an escape route for the Wachskerzes. They were hidden in huge wine vats and placed aboard a small train that made its way between Lacaune and Castres. Thus, they left the city and survived the occupation. The Wachskerzes were not the only Jews whom the Bonnafous family sheltered and assisted. On June 10, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Raoul and Albertine Bonnafous as Righteous Among the Nations.