Maurice Dubois

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Maurice and Ellenor Dubois (table in the background, 2nd and 3rd from left), SRK employee meeting in Montluel, June 1942
Locations internment camp, maternity leave, SAK / SRK colonies (selection)

Maurice Dubois (born July 17, 1905 in Biel / Bienne ; † December 6, 1997 Le Locle ) was the head of the Swiss delegation for Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross in southern France and the Swiss donation delegate in France.

Life

Maurice Dubois grew up as the son of a watchmaker in Le Locle, where he completed an apprenticeship as a furrier . He was a Quaker and a member of the Voluntary International Community Service .

1937–1939 he was involved in the Swiss Working Group for Spanish Children (Ayuda Suiza, SAS) in the Spanish Civil War . Based on his experience there, he and his wife, the American Ellenor Imbelli , set up the headquarters of children's aid in the unoccupied southern zone for the Swiss Working Group for War Damaged Children (SAK) (from 1942 Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross ) in Toulouse 1940 to 1943. From 1944 to 1948 he was a delegate for the Swiss donation in France.

1948–1952 he ran a children's home for children from concentration camps in Adelboden and from 1952 to 1970 the orphanage Foyer d'enfants (today: Center pédagogique Les Billodes ) in Le Locle.

Activity for the children's aid

France during the German occupation from 1940 to 1944

After the defeat of the Republicans by the Franco troops, the exodus ( Retirada ) of over 450,000 refugees from the Spanish Civil War to France began in February 1939 . Tens of thousands lived in unimaginable conditions in around 100 French internment camps such as Argelès-sur-Mer , Rivesaltes , Saint-Cyprien and Septfonds , including pregnant women whose children had little chance of survival. With the western campaign in May 1940 and the occupation of northern France by the Wehrmacht , hundreds of thousands fled to unoccupied France. The internment camps housed convicts, unwanted foreigners, " gypsies " from Alsace and Jewish families from the northern zone, Belgium and Germany.

Dubois helped the SAK (1940–1941) and the SRK Kinderhilfe (from 1942) in the unoccupied zone of southern France a network of colonies with ten children's homes, two infant homes (Pouponnière) and a maternity home, where pregnant women and children from internment camps as well as children, who had fled from the National Socialists were housed to operate:

He and his delegation were responsible for the 40 or so employees in the homes and for the Swiss nurses who provided help in the Gurs and Rivesaltes internment camps and operated Swiss canteens , as well as for the logistics of the distribution of relief supplies.

Colony of Château de la Hille

In the summer of 1942, at the request of Nazi Germany, the Vichy regime approved the deportation of 10,000 foreign Jews, thus starting the deportations from the southern zone. On August 26, 1942, 45 Jewish youths over the age of 16 and employees from La Hille (and some from Saint-Cergues les Voirons ) were taken by the French police to the Le Vernet internment camp, from where they were to be deported. With the help of the Swiss embassy, Maurice Dubois was able to obtain the approval of the General Secretary of the Police of the Vichy regime René Bousquet that all arrested persons could return to La Hille (and Saint-Cergues les Voirons) from the government in Vichy .

Honors

  • 2012 Exhibition in the library of La Chaux-de-fonds: Maurice Dubois une vie d'engagement.

documentation

literature

  • Paul Senn : «If you are human ... feel my need. Read in faces! " A photo report of the activities of the Swiss aid organization in children's homes and refugee camps in the south of France. in: Schweizer Illustrierte Zeitung , Zofingen, vol. 31 (No. 9/25 February 1942), pp. 261–265.
  • Hélène Sylvie Perret: Le Secours suisse aux enfants dans le Sud de la France 1939 à 1947, depuis 1942 sous la direction de la Croix-Rouge Suisse, Secours aux enfants , unpublished documentation, La Chaux-de-Fonds 1995.
  • Antonia Schmidlin: Another Switzerland. Helpers, children of war and humanitarian policy 1933–1942. Chronos Publishing House. Zurich 1999, ISBN 978-3-905313-04-8 .
  • François Wisard: Les Justes suisses. CICAD 2007
  • Helena Kanyar Becker (ed.): Forgotten women. Humanitarian aid to children and official refugee policy 1917–1948. Basel Contributions to History, Volume 182. Schwabe Verlag, Basel 2010, ISBN 3-79652695-0 .
  • Tristan Castanier: La Pouponnière de Banyuls-sur-Mer, une annexe de la Marternité Suisse d'Elne, July 1941 - November 1942 , l'Association Générations Banyuls.
  • Serge Nessi: The Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross 1942–1945 and the role of the doctor Hugo Oltramare . Preface by Cornelio Sommaruga . Karolinger Verlag, Vienna / Leipzig 2013, ISBN 978-3-85418-147-7 (French original edition: Éditions Slatkine , Genève 2011, ISBN 978-2-8321-0458-3 ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helena Kanyar Becker: Forgotten women . Schwabe 2010
  2. ↑ Serge Nessi: The Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross 1942-1945 and the role of the doctor Hugo Oltramare .
  3. ↑ Maurice Dubois on the website of Yad Vashem (English)
  4. ↑ La Chaux-de-fonds: Maurice Dubois exhibition ( Memento of the original of February 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / cdf-bibliotheques.ne.ch
personal data
SURNAME Dubois, Maurice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss teacher
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Biel / Bienne
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1997
Place of death Le Locle