Vivette Samuel (1919–2006)

Vivette Samuel, née Hermann, was born in Paris to a Jewish family. Her philosophy studies at the Sorbonne interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, she went to work for the Oeuvre de secours aux enfants (Society for Assistance to Children or OSE), a group founded by Jewish doctors. At age 22, she became the resident social worker in the internment camp of Rivesaltes, set up by the French Vichy government for Jews, foreigners, and other so-called "undesirables." Her task was to arrange for parents to authorize separation from their children so they could be spared deportation to Nazi concentration and death camps. These children were then given false papers and hidden with non-Jewish families, placed in a children's home or other institution, or smuggled out of France to the USA or a neutral country. In 1942, she joined the clandestine network of the OSE trying to help children outside the camp. She married Julien Samuel, then-director of the OSE children's house near Limoges, and they worked in Limoges, Marseille, and Chambéry, risking arrest by the Gestapo but managing to survive. After the war, she directed the social work services of the OSE. Her wartime memoir, Sauver les enfants (English translation: Rescuing the Children) was published in 2002. Among those saved by the OSE was Elie Wiesel, recipient of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.