Bernes Marguerite

Bernes, Sister Marguerite File 898 The French religious sister, Marguerite Bernes, spent the war in Italy, where she served as an assistant to the Mother Superior of the San Giaccomo convent in Rome. Bernes was actually the manager of the convent and its affairs, and so, during the war, at considerable risk to herself, she was able to hide persecuted Jews and Italians in the convent, thereby saving many lives. In September 1943, after the Germans occupied Rome, Anita Finzi and her children left their home. After experiencing many hardships, she heard about the San Giaccomo convent. Sister Bernes welcomed them wholeheartedly. She housed them in a room with other Jewish refugees, and hid additional Jews and Italians who were persecuted by the Germans in the bell tower of a nearby church. Bernes was a loyal friend to the Finzi family; she provided food for everyone in hiding, did her best to fulfill their needs, and even considered it her duty to help Jews maintain their religious customs. The Germans were apparently aware that many Jews were hiding in the vicinity of the convent and regularly searched the nearby convents and churches. Bernes and the other sisters were entirely aware of the German searches but their sense of duty and charity impelled them to continue to risk their lives in order to support the desperate people who had turned to them for help. Indeed, about when the Finzi family reached the convent, the Germans had arrested a priest “guilty” of hiding Jews in a nearby monastery and sentenced him to death as a warning to all others. After an informer told the Germans that Jews were being sheltered in Bernes’ convent, the Gestapo broke in and arrested several of the people in hiding. A few, including the Finzi children, escaped. Bernes found a hiding place for them in another convent. Rosetta Sermoneta, an Italian-born Jewish woman, fled from the Germans in the spring of 1944, and was warmly welcomed by Bernes, whom she knew through a Catholicfriend. Bernes housed her in a large room with other refugees, helped her adjust to life in the convent, and allowed her to attend the convent school without payment. Several years after the war, Sister Bernes moved to Jerusalem and was Mother Superior of the Saint Vincent Convent in Ein Kerem, a home for mentally retarded children. She was awarded the title, “Distinguished Citizen of Jerusalem” for her contribution to Jerusalem’s wellbeing and development. Although well-known in Jerusalem, Bernes never mentioned her actions during the Holocaust, believing that many others were more deserving of the gratitude of the Jewish people. “In my youth, ” she explained, “God instructed me to devote my life to the service of my poor, suffering brethren in silence and humility. . . . The little I did during the long months of the Holocaust has already been amply acknowledged, something I never expected. . . . ” The Finzi family remained on close terms with Sister Bernes and visited her in Jerusalem. On August 15, 1974, Yad Vashem recognized Marguerite Bernes as Righteous Among the Nations.