Peltel Yvonne

Peltel, Yvonne File 7873 Yvonne Peltel, the widow of a Polish Jew, lived in the third arrondissement of Paris and was acquainted with many Jews there. During the great roundup of Jews in Paris on July 16, 1942, Peltel sheltered the Aptekiers, a couple with two sons, fifteen-year-old Jacques and ten-year-old Albert, and the Kirschenbergs, in her home. When Peltel’s neighbors went away for summer vacation and left the keys to their apartment in her possession, she used their dwelling to conceal additional Jews. Several days after the roundup, when tranquility seemed to have returned to the streets of Paris, the Jews returned to their homes. However, in November 1942, David Aptekier was arrested, taken to Drancy, and thence deported to Auschwitz, never to return. His oldest son, Jacques, was placed in the Ecole de travail, a Jewish boarding school on the rue des Rosiers run by the UGIF and supervised by the government. Five months later, in March 1943, he fled from the school, fearing that all the youngsters there would be deported to the east, which is what happened about a year later. Peltel helped him escape by concealing him in her home until he could leave Paris. Jacques and Albert Aptekier maintained a grateful friendship with Yvonne Peltel, who saved their lives. On November 24, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Yvonne Peltel as Righteous Among the Nations.