Baumont Maurice

Baumont, Maurice File 3225 Maurice Baumont was a professor of contemporary history, specializing in German history at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was known as a loyal friend of the Jews. With the courageous assistance of his stepdaughter, Arlette Kramer-Baumont, a Jewish activist in the Resistance, Baumont provided Jews with forged identity and ration cards so that they could flee to the southern zone or remain in hiding in the occupied zone. In July 1942, when French policemen conducted a door-to-door search for Jews to hand over to the Germans, Baumont and his stepdaughter’s home provided immediate refuge for fourteen Jewish fugitives. After the war, Sophie Neu testified that, in early July 1942, Arlette Kramer-Baumont gave her a forged identity card so that she could hide her Jewish identity. On July 14, Arlette warned of an impending roundup of Jews and offered shelter in her home. Neu accepted the offer. On July 18, policemen interrogated the Baumonts about the presence of Jews in their home. While the police were talking with the Baumonts at the front entrance, Neu fled by the back stairs of the house. All fourteen Jews living in the house escaped. Jenny Bromberger and her husband, Guillaume, were among the Jews who were sheltered in Baumont’s home during those terrifying days (July 15-18, 1942). After they fled, they lived in Versailles for nearly a year, in a refuge that Baumont also arranged. After the war, Professor Baumont chaired a research committee on World War II and published the “Wilhelmstrasse, ” the secret archives of the Reich Foreign Ministry. On June 4, 1985, Yad Vashem recognized Professor Maurice Baumont as Righteous Among the Nations.