Posted on 01/06/2019 4:23:27 AM PST by lowbridge
Georges Loinger, a physical education teacher in France who saved hundreds of Jewish children from deportation to concentration camps by helping to smuggle them into Switzerland, died on Dec. 28 at his home in Paris. He was 108.
His son, Daniel, said he died after a recent fall.
In the years after the German invasion of France in 1940, Oeuvre Secours aux Enfants, a relief organization known as O.S.E., orchestrated many efforts with the French Resistance to rescue the sons and daughters of European Jews who had been killed or sent to death camps.
Some children were placed with French Catholics or sent to the United States; others lived in safe houses around France, where Mr. Loinger, who was Jewish himself, ran sports competitions to maintain the children’s physical and mental well-being.
Mr. Loinger (pronounced low-ohn-JAY) was well suited to his clandestine work. He not only spoke German fluently, but with his blond hair and blue eyes he could also pass as an Aryan while smuggling young Jews.
In the spring of 1943, as the Germans stepped up their efforts to kill French Jews, the O.S.E. gave Mr. Loinger a perilous mission: spirit the children to safety in neutral Switzerland. Over the next year, he was part of various operations that saved at least 350 children.
In one elaborate scheme, which he repeated numerous times in 1943, he brought the children by train from Aix-les-Bains to the railroad station in the village of Annemasse, across the border from Geneva. When they arrived, carrying false identification papers, the children walked through doorways affixed by cooperative railroad workers with signs that said, “This Exit for Campers” and were fed and sheltered at a reception center.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
108 ... and dies of a fall. RIP good Sir, and well done.
I think this is the guy (because it happened near the Swiss border) who urged the kids to kick the soccer ball over to the other side, out of bounds, over the net into Switzerland then, go out to recover the ball and escape that way. Pretty sharp, I hadn’t thought of that. The soccer fields were right next to Switzerland.
Eternal rest grant unto George
O Lord and
may perpetual light shine upon him.
May George’s soul and
all the souls of the faithfully departed
through the Mercy of God
rest in peace.
7
” “And while the game was in progress,” Loinger added, “some of the kids would cross the barbed wire — there were always fewer kids in our returning group, but no one noticed.”
Alternatively, Loinger would throw a ball hundreds of feet, just as he had as an exercise at the chateaus, when the children were urged to retrieve the ball and run back. This time, the children kept running, all the way to Switzerland.”
Wow! What a life worth sharing. I read the whole thing and especially enjoyed the part about how he conned a group of German soldiers on the same train to escort his Jewish children from the rail station to their nearby rest camp in Switzerland.
Rest in Peace in G-d’s arms.
Great man.
Heaven must have a special place for men and women like this. God Bless Him!
God receive his soul.
RIP.
We have members of congress who want to kill all the Jews.
..................
May Georges Loinger RIP.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.