Eloy Georges & Anna ; Daughter: Declaye Georgette (Eloy); Daughter: Siniat Julia (Eloy)

Eloy, Georges Eloy, Anna Declaye-Eloy, Georgette Siniat-Eloy, Julia In 1942, 21-year-old Georgette Eloy, of Achêt, (Namur province), a schoolteacher by profession, worked in a private children’s home in Linden east of Leuven/Louvain, where several Jewish children were in hiding. Fearing a house search, the head of the home, Madeleine Sorel*, asked Georgette to take Jewish children to her village and try to place them with families. With the help of her 20-year-old sister Julia, Georgette placed seventeen children with farmers in Achêt, Hamois, southeast of Namur and Haversin, north of Rochefort. The Eloy sisters themselves took three-year-old Sophie Ordynance home to their parents, and changed her name to Noëlle. The Eloy parents, Georges and Anna, had a small farm. After the war, it was learned that Noëlle’s parents, Salomon and Adèle Ordynance, perished in the Holocaust. Since no one came to claim the child, she continued to live with her foster-family. When she was eight years old, the local priest learned of Noëlle’s Jewish origins. He contacted his superior in Brussels, and as a result, a few days later emissaries from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee arrived in Achêt to fetch the child. Notwithstanding the protests of Noëlle and her foster-family, she was taken to an orphanage in Brussels, from where she was adopted by the Jewish Fernandez family, in Buenos Aires. Only in 1992, after many years of separation, was Noëlle able to renew contact with her rescuers, with whom she kept in contact until their dying day. On March 26, 1998, Yad Vashem recognized Georges and Anna Eloy, and their daughters Georgette Declaye-Eloy and Julia Siniat-Eloy, as Righteous Among the Nations.