The rescued persons, Otto and Elisabeth Katz with their child, Vercheny, 1943.
Grassias, Jean
Grassias, Ninette
Oddon, Jean
Oddon, Reine
File 4038a
In July 1938, two months after the Anschluss in Austria, Dr. Otto Katz fled to his family in Antwerp. After Germany invaded Belgium, Katz was arrested. Later, he was interned in the Gurs camp in the Pyrenees. He was transferred from that camp to another and then to a third. He continued to practice medicine and treat his fellow prisoners. Then he was attached to a group of the foreign labor battalions (the GTE) in the town of Albi. In 1941, Elisabeth, Katz’s fiancée, moved to the south of France and the two were married. Katz deserted the labor camp, and the couple was able to resume daily life. Nevertheless, he was in constant danger both as a deserter and also as a Jew. In August 1942, Katz fled with his wife and newborn baby to the town of Nîmes. In May 1943, they moved on to Valence, capital of the département of Drôme. Their neighbors there, Jean and Ninette Grassias, noticed that the Katz baby cried constantly. They assumed that the baby was hungry because the mother did not have sufficient milk. Every day Ninette Grassias, who was also nursing a baby of the same age, gave the Katzes a bottle of milk for the baby. Jean Grassias, Ninette’s husband, worked for the police department. When he discovered that his Jewish neighbor was regarded as a deserter, he provided him and his family with forged identity and ration cards. Grassias then introduced the Katzes to his friends, the Oddon family, who also lived in Valence. The Grassias and the Oddons both had summer homes in Verchêne, a hamlet about fifty kilometers from Valence. Jean and Ninette placed their house at the disposition of the Katzes, who later moved in with the Oddons, who lived not far away with their four daughters, aged from nine to thirteen. The Katzes remained there until the end of 1943. The residents of the village were welcoming, and the Oddons showed great courage. The Gestapo had arrested Jean’s sisterbecause she was active in the Resistance. She was later deported to a concentration camp in Germany. In early 1944, the Gestapo launched a manhunt after Otto Katz. The Oddons found another hiding place for them, where they were able to stay until the liberation. After the war, the Katzes said that the Grassias and Oddons, who had adopted them during the war, had now become part of their family.
On December 26, 1988, Yad Vashem recognized Jean and Ninette Grassias and Jean and Reine Oddon as Righteous Among the Nations.