Gazel Blanche (Rouve)

Rouve, Blanche Samuel Herszaft (b. 1905, Poland) met his wife Sarah (née Hershkovitz, b. 1906, Czechoslovakia) in Antwerp, Belgium. They married in 1931, and by the time war broke out in 1940, they had four children and were expecting a fifth. Despite being seven months’ pregnant, Sarah and her family were able to escape to the south of France, where the Red Cross placed them in the village of St. Affrique. While the rest of the family settled there, Sarah continued alone to the much larger city of Toulouse, 120 kilometers away, in the hope that if the baby was a boy, a mohel (Jewish ritual circumciser) would be available to circumcise him. While she was away, Samuel found work at the local gas company, and the Herszaft children were taken care of by Blanche Rouve. Rouve continued to care for the children even after Sarah returned to St. Affrique with her newborn son, René. On 26 August 1942, the Herszaft family was rounded up and sent with most of St. Affrique’s 53 Jews to the Rivesaltes detention camp, from which they were to be sent to the Drancy transit camp and later Auschwitz. A sympathetic nurse encouraged Sarah to tell the camp doctor she was pregnant (she was not); this tip saved their lives and led to the family’s release, since according to the camp laws at that time, pregnant women could not be sent to Drancy, nor could a family be separated. Back in St. Affrique, the family remained in constant danger of deportation. The Oeuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) relief organization temporarily placed one daughter in a monastery and a son with a farming family. According to the testimony of Esther Herszaft, who was eight years old at the time, Rouve repeatedly stepped in to shelter the children, taking them to hide in forests and vineyards, and once even burying them under a pile of coal until danger passed. With Rouve’s help, the entire family survived the war. Though most of the Herszaft children were too young to remember Rouve firsthand, theyoften heard their parents speak of an "angel named Blanche," who had repeatedly saved them during the war. In 2006, René Herszaft went with his wife to St. Affrique for an event commemorating the deportation of the town’s Jews. There, he was interviewed by a local paper, and mentioned that he was looking for more information about a St. Affrique native named Blanche who helped Jewish children during the war. Rouve’s daughter read the article and contacted René, and the families reunited. She explained that Blanche, who had passed away in 1990, had been orphaned herself at an early age, and that was why she was always sympathetic to children in need. On 15 March, 2011, Blanche Rouve was recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.