Duc Hélène ; Mother: Jeanne

Duc, Hélène Duc, Jeanne Hautefaye, Maurice Hélène Duc, a young actress, was a colleague of the actor Robert Marx, known as Robert Marcy. She had been on a number of theatrical tours with him. Robert Marcy was from a family of French Jews originally from Alsace. He had retreated to Marseille at the time of the German occupation. His parents and sister had found refuge in Montpellier. For two years, Robert continued to work as an actor with the “Comédie en Provence” and the “Rideau Gris” theater companies. After the German invasion of the southern zone, in November 1942, Robert went underground. He was of eligible age for Forced Labor Service (STO) and was also threatened with deportation for being Jewish. His friend Hélène Duc came to his aid. First she asked her mother, Jeanne Duc, who lived in Bergerac (Dordogne) to hide him. Mrs. Duc accommodated Robert for a month, asking for nothing in return. As this solution was somewhat precarious, Hélène scoured the countryside for an alternate solution. In a small isolated village she found Simone and Jacques Rousseau, a teaching couple, who agreed to lodge Robert. They housed and fed him as had Jeanne Duc before them. In the meantime, the situation of Robert’s parents and sister became critical. Hélène continued to canvass the countryside and managed to persuade the inhabitants of an isolated hamlet 15 km from Bergerac to hide the couple and their daughter. In this way, they lived in Saint-Georges-de-Blancaneix until the Liberation. Hélène thus played a key role in the rescue of four people. Having obtained a false identity card in the name of Morand, Robert left the Rousseaus to make his way to Bordeaux where he looked up Maurice Hautefaye, who was a wine merchant. In 1941, Maurice had married off his only daughter to Paul Horstein, a cousin of Robert’s. Maurice agreed to lodge Robert, asking for nothing in return, until the Liberation. Of course he also rescued his own son-in-law, who was similarly under threat,taking great risks as his house was visited often. On February 23, 2005, Yad Vashem recognized Hélène Duc and her mother Jeanne Duc, along with Maurice Hautefaye, as Righteous Among the Nations.