Josse Marie ; Sister: Elisa

Josse, Marie Josse, Elisa In the spring of 1942, Madeleine Schukdkraut was transferred from the Chateaubriand detention camp to the camp at Aincourt. The camp commander allowed parents to bring their children with them, and Madeleine's 13-year-old son Jacques joined her. Jacques stayed at Aincourt until 7 September, when the Germans moved to take over the camp. They separated the women and children, and Madeleine was sent to Drancy, and from there to Auschwitz, never to return. Jacques was brought to a children's center in Paris called "Centre d'hébergement de l'Union General des Israélite - Guy Patin." While he was at Aincourt, Madeleine had told Jacques that during her time at Chateaubriand, she had met a woman called Marie Josse, who was a political prisoner. Josse offered her Jewish friend help if she ever needed it, after they were released. Madeleine had given Jacques Josse's address, with the instruction to contact her if the need arose. Jacques wrote to Josse from Guy Patin. He told her that his mother had been sent to Drancy and he now found himself alone in Paris. A short while later, two women, identical twin sisters, arrived. One whispered to Jacques that she was Marie Josse – the other was her sister, Elisa. They told the director of the home some made-up stories about themselves, including a fake address, and managed to persuade him to let them take their "nephew" home. As soon as he arrived at the Josse sisters' house in St Briec (Bretagne), Jacques tore the yellow star he had been forced to wear from his clothes. Then he was given false identity papers in the name of Jacques Sylvestre, born in Oran, Algeria (which could not be checked), as well as food ration papers, all provided by the underground. From September 1942 until 1949, Jacques stayed with the Josse sisters (who never married), except for the period of June 1944 until the Allied invasion of Normandie. At this time, the Germans had begun searching for formerpolitical prisoners and members of the resistance, and in order to avoid arrest, the Josse sisters found themselves and Jacques refuge with local farmers. Until their return to St Brieuc, they sometimes hid in the fields and forests out of fear for their lives. Jacques later recalled: "Our lives were not easy. The sisters were stern, and I was a young boy. I studied at a Catholic school and learned the New Testament, in case the police or Germans interrogated me." The Josse sisters, who were fiercely patriotic, would sometimes hide Allied pilots in their home at night. They and Jacques listened intently to radio broadcasts from London every evening, with Jacques praying that the war would soon end and he would be reunited with his loving mother. After liberation, Jacques found out he was his family's only survivor, and stayed with Marie and Elisa Josse until his conscription into the French army in 1949. When he returned from duty, he immigrated to Canada, where he lives to this day. Jacques and his wife remain in close contact with his rescuers. On March 25, 2008, Marie Josse and her sister Elisa Josse were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.