Montluçon, arrondissement de Montluçon, département de l'Allier, Auvergne, France

Latitude 46°20′27″N
Longitude 2°36′12″E
City Montluçon
Church Parish arrondissement de Montluçon
County département de l'Allier
State/ Province Auvergne
Postal Code 03185/03100
Country France

Narrative

During the Second World War, the Germans occupied the Dunlop Tire Plant, even though Montluçon was in the free zone, to exploit the research lab to synthesize rubber, since natural rubber could not be imported by the Nazis.

 

Narrative

Gilbert Lesage personally directed the selection process at the Vénissieux camp, near Lyon, and freed 108 Jewish children.
He did the same in other places where Jews were concentrated, near Mâcon, Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, and Montluçon.
He also enabled ssistance associations to the camps, such as l'Amitié chrétienne Christian Friendship,led by the Father Chaillet and Abbé Glasberg, and l'Oeuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE).

Narrative

On January 6, 1943, a mob of Montluçonnais overran guards supervising deportation of men to Germany, in accordance with the Service de Travail Obligatoire (Obligatory Work Service) plan that sent able Frenchmen to fill vacancies in German factories during the war.
All the men who were to be deported escaped to the countryside, evading the forced industrial service in the Reich

Narrative

In 1943, in the departement of Allier, a census showed 303 foreign Jews.
The Germans issued orders to arrest all of them, aged 18 to 55 years; only those enrolledin Groupements de Travailleurs étrangers were arrested.
Of 21 foreign Jews in the arrondisement of Vichy, 12 were captured, while in Montluçon,, only 2 of 11 foreign Jews were captured.
Only 18 Jews from the entire departement of Allier were sent to Gurs.

Source References

  1. Vichy France and the Jews
    1. Page: 321
  2. The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews
    1. Page: 134

References

  1. Friedländer פרידלנדר, Saul