Roux Marcel

Nogier, Gaston Roux, Marcel Hermann Joseph Drajer (b. 1920) was the second son of Charles (Chil Manel) and Esther (née Kraut) Drajer, who emigrated from Poland to Germany in 1919 and then to France ten years later. Following the French surrender to Germany in 1940, Hermann moved from Paris to Toulouse, where he found a job as well as connections to the underground. Though he was not a communist, he gained admittance to the communist-led resistance movement, for whom he performed low-level resistance actions, such as pasting flyers and throwing rocks. However, he eventually decided to stay ahead of the police by leaving Toulouse. Hermann traveled to the village of Carmaux and sought out the local priest, a man named Delors. Hermann explained that he was being pursued by Nazis and had nowhere to run. Delors suggested that Hermann seek shelter with his father, who managed a lepers’ hospital in Chartreuse de Valbonne from which the Germans stayed away, fearing that leprosy was contagious. (Hermann was assured that leprosy was not contagious in Europe’s cold climates.) But while Hermann was indeed safe, he was deeply unhappy there. There was a shortage of medicine and electricity, and the mortality rate among the patients was high. Despite the safety, he chose to leave, settling first in Drôme and then renting a house in Portes-lès-Valence. During this period, he became aware that his parents were in imminent danger of being arrested by the Nazis, so he arranged for his entire family to join him. Each family member was given their own false identification papers. While in Valence, Hermann befriended a carpenter, Gaston Nogier, whom he had hired to fix the decrepit furniture that came with the house. Nogier helped arrange factory work for Hermann. To travel to the factory, Hermann endured many close calls, narrowly escaping Nazi and Vichy police. Hermann’s forged identity card contained details about an actual person, a Parisian named "André B." Thismade his bogus identity more ironclad, but also led to danger when Hermann found out that his cousin, who was using the same assumed name in another town, had run into trouble with the Nazis, and as a result they were actively searching for an "André B." He turned again to Nogier, who found him new papers, shrewdly listing him as having been born in a town whose archives had been destroyed in a bombing, making verification impossible. He also found him a place to stay, at the home of Marcel Roux, who owned a saw mill in Saint-Mélany. Roux allowed Hermann to work at his factory and, by Hermann’s account, treated him as a brother. Roux then arranged for Hermann's family to be smuggled from Valence to Saint-Mélany, and placed them in an abandoned monastery. Together with Roux, local villagers galvanized to support the newcomers, ensuring that they had a steady flow of food, furniture, cookware and light bulbs. According to testimonies, the villagers of Saint-Mélany always set aside some of their baking or produce to share with the Drajer family, taking care of them until the end of the war. On 21 May, 2012, Gaston Nogier and Marcel Roux were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.