Couturier Jean-Louis & Pierrette (Battistin)

Couturier, Jean-Louis Couturier, Pierrette In November 1942, the Germans occupied Lyon, France, shattering the lives of the city’s Jewish inhabitants. Jean-Louis and Pierrette Couturier, friends of the Rosner family, offered to hide the Jewish couple's children Alain (b. 1938), Jean Paul (b. 1939), as well as the father’s younger sister, Irene (b. 1923). The Rosners gratefully agreed, and the three youngsters began their new lives in the Couturiers’ home in the nearby village of Charbonnière. The children later recalled that while the war raged, they enjoyed an idyllic existence in which the childless Couturiers treated them like their own children. “It was the most beautiful period of my life,” Alain later testified. “We went to school, and in the evenings M. Couturier would teach me to read and count, and would also check my homework and teach me multiplication tables.” Only much later in life did Alain appreciate the risk the Couturiers took by raising the Jewish children in their own home. Jean Paul also retained fond memories of the period: “We always had plenty of food,” he recalled, “and they never pressured us to adopt their religion. The principal of the school, our teacher and about 100 villagers must have known we were Jewish; yet to our great fortune and the fortune of our rescuers, no one denounced us.” The children’s parents survived the war and were reunited with their children in September 1944. The Rosner and Couturier families remained close for many more years, routinely attending each other’s family events until the Couturiers passed away. On March 15, 2011, Jean-Louis and Pierrette Couturier were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.