Rémond Paul

Rémond, Monsignor Paul File 5061 Paul Rémond, the Bishop of Nice, admired Marshal Pétain greatly and urged his flock to support him. Nevertheless, Rémond loathed the Germans, who had occupied his homeland, and vigorously opposed the Vichy regime’s antisemitic policies. Even before the war, Rémond participated in protests against antisemitism. In the summer of 1943, Moussa Abadi, a Jew who had fled from Paris to Nice, approached Rémond. An Italian officer in the occupying forces told Abadi about the mass murder of Jews in Eastern Europe that he had witnessed. Abadi believed the Italian officer and feared that German forces would eventually occupy Nice and its vicinity and deport the Jews who had found refuge there. Rémond assured him that all Catholic institutions in his diocese would be opened to shelter Jewish children, and promised to provide Abadi with a room in the Episcopal Palace and his own staff members to forge documents, if necessary. Rémond also appointed Abadi, under an assumed name, as a general inspector of the diocese educational institutions. By virtue of these initiatives, a network for the rescue of Jewish children was in place when the Germans occupied Nice on September 9, 1943, and Gestapo agents commanded by Alois Brunner launched a brutal manhunt for Jews. Despite the danger, Rémond kept his promises, thereby facilitating the hiding and rescue of over 527 Jewish children. Many children were sheltered in the dormitories of Catholic schools, where they were enrolled, following the instructions of Moussa Abadi, renamed Monsieur Marcel. On December 2, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Monsignor Paul Rémond as Righteous Among the Nations.