Robert Jablon

Robert Jablon , originally Robert Jablonski (born April 29, 1909 in Paris , † March 2, 2008 ) was a German-French lawyer . He became known as the “LaGuette Child Saver” when he saved several hundred Jewish children from deportation to Nazi extermination camps during World War II .

Life and activity

Robert Jablon was born the son of a businessman. He grew up in Darmstadt . After attending school, he studied law . In 1931 he passed the first state examination in law. He was then used as a trainee lawyer at various Prussian courts until 1933 . Politically, he belonged to the Social Democratic Party . Since 1932 he belonged to the left-wing socialist cadre organization Neu Beginnen, also under the code name Wagner .

In the summer of 1932, as a trainee lawyer at the Berlin district court , Jablonski contributed to the fact that a trial against Carl von Ossietzky , the publisher of the Weltbühne magazine, had allowed the statement “Soldiers are murderers”, which goes back to Kurt Tucholsky , to be disseminated in his magazine and therefore because of insult had been accused, ended in an acquittal by convincing the presiding judge during the discussion of the case that this was a collective insult which, according to the rulings of the Reichsgericht, was to be regarded as free from punishment. The judgment that Jablonski issued on behalf of the chairman was accordingly and Ossietzky acquitted. The Berlin Court of Appeal as the revision instance later confirmed the judgment.

After the National Socialists came to power , Jablonski was dismissed from civil service due to his Jewish descent , in accordance with the provisions of the Law on the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. On September 15, 1935, he emigrated to Czechoslovakia . In March 1936 he traveled on to Paris, where he changed his name to Jablon. There he was naturalized in 1938.

After the pogroms in Germany on November 9, 1938, known as the Reichskristallnacht , Jablons became general secretary of an organization dedicated to evacuating Jewish children from Germany and Austria . The first 130 of these children left Berlin on March 20, 1939 on a train that took them to the Rothschild hunting lodge Chateau de la Guette near Paris. The organization brought up by Jablonski took over the guardianship of the children.

After the German occupation of France, the children were taken to the Auvergne . After he was able to convince the Aliens Police in the Interior Ministry of the Vichy regime to issue exit permits for two dozen children, they traveled to New York via Lisbon in June 1941 . Several dozen other children were able to be hidden in France during the German occupation. Findings from the post-war period showed that 130 children smuggled out of Germany by Jablon survived 90, while the fate of the remaining 40 is unknown.

Declared an enemy of the state by the German police forces, he had already been placed on the special wanted list GB in the spring of 1940 by the Reich Security Main Office - which mistakenly suspected him to be in Great Britain - a directory of people who would be killed in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British island by the Germans Wehrmacht from SS special commandos that were supposed to follow the occupation troops should be located and arrested with special priority. After it was learned in Berlin that he was under the control of the Vichy regime, an application was made for his extradition under Article 19 of the Franco-German armistice of 1940. In addition, the government of Philippe Pétain revoked his French citizenship by a special decree. He evaded the stalking of the Vichy police and the National Socialists by going underground with the help of friends in the Resistance and finally escaping to Switzerland .

After the Second World War, Jablon worked as a bank director for the Banque Rothschild in Paris. After his retirement he worked as a finance and business specialist until the 1990s.

Robert Jablon was married to Eva Silbermann. The marriage produced a son.

Web links

• Stefan Appelius : The child savior from La Guette - Robert Jablon. In: Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung (Bonn) No. 21, October 17, 1996. ( digitized version )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Robert Jablon biography. Retrieved April 15, 2016 (French). 
2. ^ Entry on Jablon on the special wanted site GB (reproduction of the list on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London)