Paret Marcelle

Paret, Marcelle Marcelle Paret was a teacher who lived in Les Lilas, a suburb of Paris. Following the outbreak of war in France, Paret – Catholic and single – joined an organization that helped Jews. She would hide her charges for a day or two until they received new identity papers and moved on. Among Paret's acquaintances were Henri and Rose Blitzman, who also lived in Les Lilas. Henri, a chemical engineer, was born in Romania in 1900 and moved to France at the age of 17. In 1930, he met and married Rose (née Grinblatt), who was also from Romania. At the beginning of the war, Rose’s sister Gisèle Robel and mother Sara Grinblatt lived with the Blitzmans. They held Romanian citizenship until September 1942, when Romania canceled the citizenship of all Romanian Jews who lived outside the country's borders. French police began to round up former Romanian citizens including Rose (who was in an advanced state of pregnancy), Gisèle and their mother. Henri was not at home at the time of the raid. When he learned of the women's arrest, he realized that he could not return home and appealed to Paret to hide him. She willingly agreed, but the police soon came looking for him at her home. She hid Henri behind long, thick curtains covering the window, and he was not discovered. Henri remained in hiding with Paret despite the risk that they might return to search again. Sara and Gisèle were interned in Drancy and then deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. Rose remained in Drancy, as pregnant women were not deported. When Paret heard that Rose was still in the camp, she conspired with a midwife who worked in Drancy that when Rose gave birth she would be transferred to a maternity hospital. After the birth of Antoinette on October 3, 1942, Paret managed to collect Rose and her daughter and took them to her apartment, where Henri was still in hiding. A short while later, she sent the whole family to live in her ancestral home in the village ofSaint-Pierre de Boeuf in the Loire, where, with false papers in the name of Durand, they remained until liberation. After the war, the Blitzmans returned to live in Les Lilas, but they divorced in 1949. Following their separation, Henri lived with Paret until his death, in 1967, when she retired to her native village. Rose married her former brother-in-law, David Robel, and they settled in Paris. On May 3, 2011, Yad Vashem recognized Marcelle Paret as Righteous Among the Nations.