Portrait of Frida by Evvy Eisen, 1999. Shoah Memorial
Frida Wattenberg passed away a few days before her 96th birthday
With the Covid-19 virus, Frida Wattenberg left us on April 3, four days before her 96th birthday.
Frida was born on April 7, 1924 in Paris to parents from the Lodz region of Poland.
In the 1930s, she joined the movement ofHachomer Hatzaïr.
From October 1940, she joined the Gaullist cell of the Victor Hugo high school in Paris and participated on November 11, 1940 in the collage of posters in all classes to call young people to the Resistance. In 1941, she is recruited by the Child Relief Organization (OSE) and makes fake papers with Joseph Migneret, Director of the School of Hospitallers Saint-Gervais, in Paris in the fourth arrondissement.
His mother, Alta Wattenberg, was arrested on 16 July 1942 during the Vel d'Hiv roundup and interned at the Drancy camp. Frida manages to obtain her release by proving that her mother works in a workshop supplying clothes to the German Army. Alta joins Lhommaizé, in the Vienne, where she will stay for more than two years.
In 1943, Frida left Paris for Grenoble, in the Italian occupation zone, and joined the Jewish Resistance. She was recruited by Sacha Racine, within the Zionist Youth Movement (MJS) under the directives of Toto Giniewski and then Georges Schnek. She leads groups of children to Annecy for their visit to Switzerland via Saint-Julien-en-Genevoix in Haute Savoie. She is then assigned to Toulouse where she works with the Jewish Army (AJ).
After the Liberation, Frida worked at the Work for the Protection of Jewish Children (OPEJ) which took care of the children whose parents died in deportation, and ardently campaigned for the creation of the State of Israel. She is directly involved in helping the Jews of the Exodus.
Frida at Kibbutz Narshonim, Hazali. Palestine, 1947-1948. Shoah Memorial
Frida was a volunteer for more than 20 years at the Shoah Memorial and testified for years for school children. Today, a children’s workshop is dedicated to its history.
Frida Wattenberg was a knight in the order of the Legion of Honor, a knight in the national order of Merit, a volunteer fighter for the Resistance, and a founding member of the association of former members of theJewish Resistance (ARJF) and of the "Mémoire juive de Paris". Frida carries out, with notably Georges Loinger, a remarkable research work on the members of the Jewish Resistance in France and the importance of their action.
The Memorial salutes the memory of this heartfelt woman and tireless fighter, and offers its condolences to her family.
Find the story of Frida in this film, shot on the occasion of the exhibition "After the Shoah. Survivors, refugees, survivors. 1944-1947":
