Le Gualès de Mézaubran Adolphe & Gilberte

Le Gualès de Mézaubran, Adolphe Le Gualès de Mézaubran, Gilberte File 8449 Count Le Gualès de Mézaubran, mayor of Joué sur Erdre (Loire Atlantique), resided with his wife Gilberte in their chateau, Lucinière. When the Germans invaded France and hundreds of thousands of people fled, the couple had hosted several Parisians. One of them, Mme Cheffro, had developed a special friendship with the Countess. One day, a Wehrmacht officer ordered the Countess to provide oats for their horses. Not understanding German, the Countess did not move. The officer then threatened her with his pistol. The Parisian refugee, who spoke German, hastily took over. During the following days, and until the refugees went back to Paris, she functioned as an interpreter, to the great relief of the owners of the chateau. Mme Cheffro was Jewish, as was her husband, who was arrested as early as May 1941, and incarcerated at the Beaune la Rolande camp. He was deported to the east in July 1942. During the mass arrest of Parisian Jews, several other relatives were arrested. Fearing for her children, Mme Cheffro turned to her former hosts who immediately agreed to find shelter in the village for her two eldest children, Charles, twelve, and Lucienne, nine. They were entrusted to a foster family in Joué sur Erdre and the Count and his wife paid for their upkeep. On February 13, 1943, in the wee hours of the morning, the police knocked loudly on the door of the Cheffro flat. The occupants kept very quiet and did not open. They rushed to their neighbors as soon as the policemen had left. When the police returned a few hours later and broke down the door, there was no one there. Madame Cheffro, her younger child, a boy of two, two nephews, Aron and Jeannette Pokoïk and their father, as well as five other relatives and friends, all managed to get to the Montparnasse railway station and took the train to Nantes. Arriving safely, they went on to Joué sur Erdre where the Count and the Countess hadprepared a hiding place for them; the empty house of their forest warden in Lichtout, near the Touches. The ten fugitives remained there safely until the end of the war, while the castle owners saw to all their needs. On October 10, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Count Adolphe and Countess Gilberte Le Gualès de Mézaubran as Righteous Among the Nations.