Lauret Georges

Lauret, Georges Professor Georges Lauret, physician, was director of the department of gynecology at the Rouen hospital (Seine-Maritime). On January 19, 1943, he was called to the bedside of a sick patient, Linda Ganon (née Alalouf), who had been brought there from police headquarters by a Red Cross ambulance together with her daughters, Pauline, b.1931 and Gaby, b.1932. She had categorically refused to be examined by any subordinates, and only wanted to speak to the head of the department. Dr. Lauret consulted with the patient, who informed him that she was Jewish and originally from Turkey. Her husband, Raphaël, had been arrested on May 6, 1942, and deported from Drancy on September 30, by transport no. 39 to Auschwitz. In January 1943, police officers had shown up at her home to arrest her and her children. She took to her bed and pretended to be having a miscarriage, refusing to move. At two o’clock in the morning, Linda finally agreed to go to the police station. She halted at each step, to make them believe she was in a lot of pain so as to gain some time. The chief of police was embarrassed by the situation, and the other Jews who had been arrested during the night had already been dispatched. He sent for an ambulance to take Linda to the hospital with her two daughters. Linda admitted to Dr. Lauret that she was in perfect health but that she wanted to save her daughters and herself. He reassured her and had all three of them admitted to the hospital. He diagnosed the mother with an undetectable disease and hung a temperature monitor sheet at the foot of her bed. It indicated a graph mapping a worrisome curve that corresponded to a serious infection. He admitted the two girls to the isolation ward. A few weeks later, a German doctor came to evaluate the status of the patients. Dr. Lauret stood his ground when questioned by his colleague, who went so far as to interrogate the nurses, who were nuns, to confirm his diagnosis. They covered for theirsuperior, declaring that the children were in fact anemic with numerous inflamed ganglions, and that the mother was an extraordinary medical case, now being subjected to “experimental” treatments. Dr. Lauret was taking a serious risk, right under the noses of the Germans and the staff, some of them collaborators. Linda and her daughters left the hospital with the Liberation, after more than one year. Dr. Lauret’s courage and cocky determination had saved them all. On April 13, 2004, Yad Vashem recognized Georges Lauret as Righteous Among the Nations.