Monod Charles & Madeleine

Monod, Pastor Charles Monod, Madeleine File 6958 Charles Monod was a Protestant minister who served in Cannes, which the Germans occupied on September 9, 1943. Pastor Monod, who belonged to a Protestant rescue network during the occupation, saved both Jews and non-Jews by providing certificates of baptism and forged identification cards. Sixteen-year-old Fuli Kas-Politansky and her mother arrived in Cannes after fleeing Marseilles, and the two went into hiding with Christian friends. With the help of forged papers that they received from Monod, they survived the occupation. Several decades later, Kas-Politansky’s son married a relative of Pastor Monod’s without knowing that Monod had helped his mother during the occupation. In another rescue action, Monod and his wife Madeleine sheltered Susanne Gossenheimer, a young Jewish woman from Germany. One day, the Germans arrested Monod and accused him of issuing forged certificates of baptism. Gossenheimer was bedridden with typhus just then. The Germans wanted to arrest her, too, but Madeleine Monod persuaded them not to because of her grave illness. Monod was tried and convicted in a French court. He and his wife never sought remuneration for their rescue actions, which were prompted solely by humane and religious motives. On January 7, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Pastor Charles Monod and his wife Madeleine as Righteous Among the Nations.