Fiket Paul & Augustine (Conrath)

Fiket, Paul Fiket, Augustine Paul and Augustine Fiket lived in the 13th arrondissement in Paris (Seine). They had married in 1931 and had three young children. Paul, originally from Croatia, worked in a metal factory, where he became acquainted with a Jewish co-worker, Moshé Rabinovici. Rabinovici had emigrated from Moldavia to France with his wife, Gisèle, and her mother, Liba, in the 1930s. In 1941, Moshé was arrested and first detained in Beaune-la-Rolande. He was then transferred to the Drancy transit camp for deportation to the East. On 30 March 1943, he was deported on transport no. 53 to Sobibor, where he was murdered. Following Moshé’s arrest, Gisèle decided to send her infant son Simon, only four months' old, to live with farmers in the village of Mercatel (Pas-de-Calais). The farmers were already taking care of his six-year-old cousin, Armand Finkerberg, and were paid for the children’s upkeep. At the same time, Paul and Augustine Fiket offered Gisèle and Liba shelter at their home. The Fikets gave them a room in the back of their apartment which the two women seldom left. In 1943, Liba was caught and arrested by the Gestapo. Augustine Fiket acquired false papers for her and succeeded in convincing the Germans that Liba was not Jewish. Liba was released. During 1944, Pas-de-Calais became a frequent target for Allied bombings because the Germans used the northern region as their V-I missile launching base against Great Britain. Gisèle decided that the farm in Mercatel was unsafe for her son Simon and his cousin Armand. She asked Augustine to fetch the children. Augustine traveled by train to Mercatel, brought the children back to Paris and hid them in her apartment, together with Gisèle and Liba, until the end of the war. On 3 November 2009 Yad Vashem recognized Paul and Augustine Fiket as Righteous Among the Nations.