Urbain Pierre & Thérèse

Urbain, Pierre Urbain, Thérèse File 6875 Pierre and Thérèse Urbain had taken a Parisian Jewish high school student, Donald Simon, into their home. In February 1944, Donald’s niece, Huguette Blum, knocked on their door. She had just escaped from the roundup of Jewish refugees in Parthenay (Deux-Sèvres), where families from Strasbourg, who had been evacuated with the rest of the civilian population when war was declared, had settled. By chance, the girl’s name was not on the list of Jews to be deported, doubtless because of an error. Her brother Pierre, then twenty-one years old, had found a refuge in Grenoble several months earlier. However, their parents, victims of the roundup in Parthenay, were put to death in the camps in the east. Despite the danger, and with exceptional generosity, the Urbains gave refuge to two more Jewish refugees until the liberation; Pierre Blum, who came from Grenoble to join his sister, and Gérad Weil, another Jewish student from Strasbourg. On November 2, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Pierre and Therese Urbain as Righteous Among the Nations.