French group raises funds for flooded town that hid Jews during Holocaust

“BNVCA remembers the courage and solidarity that resulted in hundreds of Jewish refugees being sheltered during World War II at St. Martin de Vesubie,” BNVCA wrote in a statement.

By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ/JTA
IN THE CZECH film ‘The Painted Bird,’ Petr Kotlar plays a Jewish boy wandering through a desolate post-World War II Eastern Europe. (photo credit: Courtesy)
IN THE CZECH film ‘The Painted Bird,’ Petr Kotlar plays a Jewish boy wandering through a desolate post-World War II Eastern Europe.
(photo credit: Courtesy)
A French Jewish organization is raising funds to help residents of a flooded town where many locals tried to save Jews from the Holocaust.

 

The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, has collected $1,500 for the people of St Martin de Vesubie, where multiple homes were destroyed in a flash flood on Oct. 2.

In 1943, some 300 Jewish families were hidden in St. Martin de Vesubie, a small community near the Italian border. Most were apprehended anyway and sent to their deaths by the Nazis and their Italian allies.

“BNVCA remembers the courage and solidarity that resulted in hundreds of Jewish refugees being sheltered during World War II at St. Martin de Vesubie,” BNVCA wrote in a statement.