Delforges Andree (Romain); Sister: Romain Suzanne

Romain, Andrée Romain, Suzanne In 1942, Andrée Romain, 21, had just finished her training as a social worker, at the Central School for Social Services. At the suggestion of the school’s principal, Mrs. Mulle, who was linked with the underground, she opened a children’s home for Jews in the hamlet of Emmeville, near Bormenville and Huy, in the Ardennes. A few weeks later, Andrée moved her Jewish wards to a larger house with garden in Havelange, a neighboring village. Following a denunciation threat, she moved again and resettled at Francochamps, first in the “Sam Suphy” villa and then in “Villa Irène”. At the end of 1943, Andrée asked her younger sister, Suzanne, to join her to help with the children who arrived either through personal connections, through the National Agency for Children (ONE) or through the Jewish Defense Committee (CDJ). From the fall of 1942 until 1945, the home sheltered up to 30 Jewish children, aged three to fourteen, whose parents had either been deported or were in hiding. Andrée also employed two Jewish adults in hiding, Naftali and Miyta Herszlikovicz, who helped with the maintenance. The home received financial support from the ONE and the CDJ, completed with food supplies from the surrounding farms. Among the children rescued by Andrée and Suzanne were the three Herszlikovicz children, Hélène, 9, Jules 7, and Jacques, 5, their cousin Hélène Weiss, 12, the three Heidt (later, Hed) brothers, Manfred (Shlomo), Felix (Shmuel) and Guillaume (Zeev), aged ten, eight and four, Albert Löbl from Austria, 13, Eric Gottlieb, 13, Charles Rojer, 9, and Maximilien (Mordechai) Rozenberg, ten years old. Some of them have recounted that while in Havelange the Germans came and searched the home. Andrée whom they called “Mammy”, sent them to the woods where they stayed until she courageously turned the Germans away. The Battle of the Bulge that raged around Francochamps was also recalled as one of many frightful episodes. But thanks to Andrée andSuzanne, the children all survived. On June 2, 2003, Yad Vashem recognized Andrée Romain and her sister Suzanne as Righteous Among the Nations.