Fumeau Nelson ; Mother: Clémence

Fumeau, Nelson Fumeau, Clémence File 2832 After the occupation of France, a Jewish widow without French citizenship arrived in Pleine Selve, a town in the département of Gironde with her two daughters, twenty-year-old Hélène (later Goldman) and twenty-one-year-old Simone (later Fishman), who were born in France. On November 17, 1943, the authorities came to arrest all three of them, but Hélène and Simone were not at home. Marcel Lagarde (q.v.), the town clerk of Pleine Selve and a family acquaintance, had warned their mother and advised her to flee to the forest. He had also warned her daughters, but she did not know that and decided to wait for them at home and warn them. This sealed her fate. She was arrested, sent to Drancy, and deported to Auschwitz, where she perished. The two girls, also on the list of Jews to be arrested, could no longer return home. Marcel Lagarde sheltered them for several days and supplied forged papers and ration cards. His cousin, Nelson Fumeau, who knew the girls’ family indirectly, then came to their rescue. He helped Hélène flee to Jonzac, where she worked as a nanny for a French family until the liberation. Fumeau referred Simone to his mother, who managed the family estate in Le Tournier, near the town of Jonzac in the departement of Charente Maritime. Clémence Fumeau welcomed Simone eagerly and warmly. She gave her a job on the estate, paid her a regular salary, and looked after her devotedly until France was liberated. Fumeau knew that the two Jewish girls were in danger, hiding from the Gestapo, and he considered it his duty to save them. Fumeau, who was active in the underground, was therefore willing to risk his own life and his mother’s with no thought of any reward. On May 3, 1984, Yad Vashem recognized Nelson Fumeau and his mother Clémence as Righteous Among the Nations.