Borel Marie-Françoise

Borel, Marie-Françoise Eugène and Esther Kaufman emigrated from Hungary and settled in Paris, where they married in 1934. They earned their living as furriers, and operated a fur workshop in their apartment on the northern outskirts of Paris at Les Lilas. Their daughter Hélène was born in 1936. In July 1942, Esther was arrested during the mass round-up of foreign Jews in the capital city and taken to Drancy, the transit camp from which the Jews of France were deported to the East. Eugène, who was employed by the Germans as a forced labor furrier at a workshop in Paris, set about releasing his wife, claiming that she was an indispensable specialist whom he could not do without. However, on her return, Esther convinced Eugène that what she had witnessed in Drancy was enough reason for them to go into hiding. The Kaufmans turned to Marie-Françoise Borel, a widow who lived nearby. Borel offered them shelter at a small two-room house she owned in Romainville (Seine-Saint-Denis). The Kaufmans remained hidden there until liberation. Former neighbors of the Kaufmans', the Kwiatek family, were also saved by Borel. The couple, who worked in the manufacture of gloves and hats, had emigrated to France from Poland in 1933, and settled in Les Lilas. Their two daughters, Paulette and Thérèse, were born in 1936 and 1940. In June 1941, M. Kwiatek was arrested and incarcerated in Pithiviers. He was deported to Auschwitz one year later, and survived. Meanwhile, his wife, Feija continued to sustain the family, but gave her daughters to a neighbor to look after in order to keep them safe. In June 1943, the girls were denounced and arrested. A friend succeeded in releasing them and, as the drama ended, Marie-Françoise Borel intervened for the second time. She offered Feija and her two daughters a hiding place in a large country house she had at her disposal in the hamlet of Villevert, near Limours (today Essonne), some 30km southwest of Paris. Feija earned a living workingon the surrounding farms and helping with agricultural tasks. Though they were aware of their true identity, their neighbors were very friendly towards them and kept their presence secret until the family was reunited after the war ended. On 15 March 2009, Yad Vashem recognized Marie-Françoise Borel as Righteous Among the Nations.