Godart Justin & Louise

Godart, Justin Godart, Louise Justin Godart was known for his successful political and social career. A senator, labor minister in the coalition of the Left in 1924 and health minister in 1932, he was an early supporter of the Zionist movement. President of the “France-Palestine” association founded in 1926, he became honorary president of the French branch of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). After the Occupation, he and his wife Louise and their children fled to Pommiers (Rhône). Apart from their involvement in the Resistance in the Beaujolais region, the couple worked tirelessly to save Jews from deportation. Justin Godart personally intervened with the Vichy administration to put financial networks in place that would release funds to the JNF for rescuing Jews in France. When it became too dangerous to transfer these funds through the banks, the money was simply buried in the Godarts’ garden in Pommiers. The couple took in Joseph Fischer, president of the JNF in France, who was being sought by the police, as well as his family. Louis Ascher, another Zionist leader in France, was also taken in by the Godarts for two years. His presence under their roof was mentioned in a report of Vichy’s General Office for Jewish Affairs (CGQJ), following surveillance of their home. Ascher’s apartment in Paris was requisitioned as the property of a “Jew and Freemason.” Godart called upon Xavier Vallat, head of the CGQJ, to lift this requisition. The couple also offered safe haven to writer Pierre Paraf and to history professor Pierre Lévi. In March 1944, Fernande Israël, age 19, a Jew from Mulhouse who had sought refuge in Villefranche-sur-Saône with her family, was also hidden by the Godarts in their home and remained there until the Liberation. On the same date, the Militia had arrested her mother. Friends and colleagues formed a chain of solidarity to warn the other members of the family of the threat and to hide them. A friend of one of Fernande’s schoolmates knew theGodart family, and sent her to them. They had her pass as their cook’s helper, but she often assisted Mr. Godart in typing and duplicating secret documents. All survived to see the day of Liberation. On February 3, 2003, Yad Vashem recognized Justin and Louise Godart as Righteous Among the Nations.