Lili Garel

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Élise "Lili" Garel (née Tager; 5 July 1921, Paris – 9 November 2013, Paris) was a French Jewish resistance fighter who, with her husband Georges Garel (né Grigori Garfinkel) saved many Jewish children during the Shoah.

Biography[edit]

Élise Tager[1] was born in 1921 in Paris. Her parents were Russian Jews who emigrated to France in 1919. She participated in the Demonstration of 11 November 1940 of high school and college students at Place de l'Étoile and was imprisoned as a Jew for three months in Fresnes Prison. She took refuge in Lyon at the end of 1941.[2]

Resistant[edit]

Lili Garel, as a courier between Nice and Lyon, participated in the rescue of Jewish children, with her husband, Georges. After the war, Georges Garel became firstly director general, then president of l'Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE).[3][4] Her resistance name was Elisabeth-Jeanne Tissier.[5] She was imprisoned at Fort Montluc in Lyon.[6]

During the "night of Vénissieux" (28–29 August 1943), 108 Jewish children and 80 adults were taken out of the internment camp in Vénissieux (Lyon metropolitan area) and saved from deportation.[7] Shortly after this event, in 1943, Lili Tager and Georges Garel married.[8]

Vénissieux marked the beginning of Georges Garel's action in the field with the OSE, until then he had been an engineer in Lyon, and it was also Lili Tager's first involvement in the field. At 20 years of age, she had just been hired in the OSE office in Lyon, as a part-time secretary and as a social worker. Years later, she had not forgotten the "nightmare" of Vénissieux.[9][10][11] Georges Garel's memoir was published thanks to the "tenacious will" of his wife.[12] Historian Valérie Perthuis-Portheret made a film which chronicles the life of Lili Garel, and in particular her role in the "night of Vénissieux".[7]

Family[edit]

Georges and Lili Garel had seven children:[5] Jean-Renaud, polytechnician and biochemist; Anne, doctor; Michel, curator of Hebrew manuscripts at the National Library of France; Laurent, doctor; Thomas, normalien and physicist; Denis, doctor; and Nathalie, publicist.[13] Georges Garel died in 1979. Lili Garel died in Paris on 9 November 2013, at the age of 93.[1]

Honours[edit]

  • Honoured at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., in November 2000.
  • The headquarters of the Children's Aid Work (OSE) at 11 Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple in Paris, until then known as the 'Centre Georges Garel', became the 'Centre Georges and Lili Garel', on 23 June 2014.[14]

Bibliography[edit]

  • Deborah Dwork, Children with a Star: Jewish Youth in Nazi Europe. Yale University Press, 1993; ISBN 0300054475, ISBN 9780300054477
  • Valérie Perthuis, Le sauvetage des enfants juifs du camp de Vénissieux : août 1942, (tr. "The Rescue of Jewish Children from the Vénissieux Camp: August 19422), Lyon, Editions lyonnaises d'art et d'histoire, 1997; (ISBN 2-84147-048-2)
  • Deborah Dwork & Robert Jan Pelt. Holocaust: A History. W.W. Norton & Company, 2002. ISBN 0393051889, ISBN 9780393051889
  • Georges Garel. Le sauvetage des enfants juifs par l'OSE. (tr. "The rescue of Jewish children by the OSE"). Editions Le Manuscrit, 2012; ISBN 2304040462, ISBN 9782304040463

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Lili Garel nous a quittés à la mi-novembre" [Lili Garel passed away in mid-November]. PMH Dieulefit (in French). 1 December 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  2. ^ "La Lettre: Section 'ILS NOUS ONT QUITTE'" (PDF). mrj-moi.com. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  3. ^ "Hommage à Lili Garel". Oeuvre de secours aux enfants (in French). 18 February 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  4. ^ "Inauguration du Mur des Noms [Les Enfants et Amis ABADI]". www.lesenfantsetamisabadi.fr. 25 May 2010. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Sauver les enfants durant l'Occupation en France". JForum (in French). 21 March 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  6. ^ "Dévoilement de plaque en hommage à Charles Lederman" (PDF). data.over-blog-kiwi.com. 5 November 2009. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  7. ^ a b "Hommage appuyé à Lili Garel au siège de l'OSE". Oeuvre de secours aux enfants (in French). 26 February 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  8. ^ Cindy Banse; Laurent Beauguitte. "Mesurer l'efficacité d'un réseau de sauvetage d'enfantsjuifs: l'exemple du circuit Garel (Lyon, 1942-1944)". hal.archives-ouvertes.fr. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  9. ^ Deborah Dwork & Robert Jan Pelt. Holocaust: A History, 2002, p. 334
  10. ^ Deligia, Florent (31 August 2012). "Soixante-dix ans après le sauvetage des enfants juifs du camp de Vénissieux, elles se souviennent" [Seventy years after the rescue of Jewish children from the Vénissieux camp, they remember]. Lyon Capitale (in French). Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  11. ^ Lemeunier, Jean-Charles (31 August 2012). "Événement unique dans l'histoire de la persécution, le sauvetage des enfants juifs de Vénissieux" [Unique event in the history of the persecution, the rescue of the Jewish children of Vénissieux]. Expressions (in French). Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  12. ^ Garel, Georges (2012). Le sauvetage des enfants juifs par l'OSE (in French). Editions Le Manuscrit. p. 35. ISBN 978-2-304-04046-3. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
  13. ^ "Spécial Guerres n°1 fév/mar 2014". preprod.1001mags.com. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  14. ^ "Dévoilement de deux nouvelles plaques au siège de l'OSE en présence du Grand Rabbin de France" [Unveiling of two new plaques at OSE headquarters in the presence of the Chief Rabbi of France]. Oeuvre de secours aux enfants (in French). 24 June 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
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