Barwitzky Claire

Barwitzky, Sister Claire “An unforgettable year began for us then: a year of kindness, devotion to others, trust, love, joy, and teamwork. I cannot imagine another period in my life that could compare with it.” Thus, 40 years later, Claire Barwitzky described the rescue of 30 Jewish children who, from the summer of 1943 until the summer of 1944, were concealed in Chamonix (capital of the département of Savoie). Barwitzky was born to devout Catholic parents in the then German town of Neisse, Upper Silesia, subsequently Nysa. Her father was an unskilled railroad worker who barely eked out a living. Barwitzky abandoned her ambition of becoming a teacher because of the family’s economic difficulties. After completing her studies in 1932, Barwitzky accepted an invitation to Lyons to become the secretary of Father Remillieux, a German-speaking French cleric who was the spiritual leader of a Franco-German religious peace movement, Compagnons de Saint-François. Barwitzky joined the movement, returned to Germany, and spent two years in Freiburg for training as a spiritual aide (Seelsorgehelferin). When she returned to France in 1935, Barwitzky was posted to the congregation of Vaujany in the French Alps, but once the war began, her German origin exposed her to threats from the Resistance, which was especially active in the mountain areas. Thus, following a close friend’s advice, Sister Barwitzky took on a new job at a Catholic family-care clinic in St.-Etienne (Loire). There she kept her German origins secret so she could work with the French population without fear of bein discovered. During the occupation, this charitable institution also assisted persecuted Jewish families, most of whom lacked French citizenship. They had gone into hiding to avoid deportation and had brought their children to the Catholic institution, which had especially hired a Jew to place the Jewish children in temporary hiding places among the rural population. However, the antisemiticcampaign gathered momentum in the summer of 1943, and the danger to the children increased. Thus a new solution was adopted. They were housed in a summer camp that the agency owned near Chamonix, at the foot of Mont Blanc. There, in the picturesque valley overlooking the frozen waterfalls of the highest Alps, some 30 Jewish children spent a full year under the care of a small staff that comprised, aside from Sister Barwitzky, a French headmistress and two Jewish women. The exhausting routine of child care, which ended only in the small hours of the night, was aggravated by relentless psychological tension and fear that the youngsters’ true identity would be disclosed. Any careless remark or misstep in contacts with the authorities might result in disaster. The Catholic sister from Silesia, who had no papers herself, met all the challenges and was devoted to her wards, until the area was liberated late in the summer of 1944. During her tenure, Barwitzky was also sent on a special rescue mission to Lyons, which was under bombardment, to extricate two orphaned infant girls. On March 20, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Sister Claire Barwitzky as Righteous Among the Nations.