Tribute to Gilberte Nissim Steg, who died this Sunday, September 26, 2021, in her 98th year

© Shoah Memorial/ Gilberte Nissim in September 1941 with the EIFIs at Bierville (Seine Maritime) – (top right on the photo)

Gilberte Nissim Steg left us on Sunday, September 26, 2021 in her 98^e year.

The Shoah Memorial pays tribute to the memory of a resistance fighter who became an activist for memory.
All our thoughts go to his family and loved ones, to whom we extend our sincere condolences.

Gilberte Nissim was born on March 17, 1924 in Salonika (Greece). Her family settled in France in 1932. Gilberte and her sister Hedy enter the movement Eclaireurs Israélites before the war. At the time of the German occupation in Paris, they were not bothered by anti-Jewish laws before February 1943, due to their Greek nationality. They remain active within the EIF. Hedy thus has a UGIF legitimation card which allows her to move freely, notably during the Vel d'hiv roundup, where she and her sister Gilberte will welcome at the Lamarck center isolated Jewish children, whose parents have been arrested.

From February 1943, the Nissim family hides. Hedy will be arrested during a check, but Gilberte manages to escape. Hedy is deported by convoy 53 on March 25, 1943.

In March 1943, Gilberte enters into clandestinity and resistance under the false name of Claire Marchand, under the orders of Freddy Menahem, leader of the resistance movement of the Israelite Scouts of the Northern Zone. She carries out liaison missions and accompanying children and adults to hiding places, especially in the departments of Orne and Mayenne. It is by bicycle that she travels the roads of these sectors to keep in touch with the hidden Jews, to ensure the payment of their pension, to forward their mail and to avoid them feeling abandoned.

At the Liberation, Gilberte is a volunteer at the reception center for deportees of the Lutétia as a member of the Youth Social Service. Hedy will not return from deportation.

Gilberte studies medicine and marries in 1951 with Ady Steg.

© Shoah Memorial – Address by Gilberte Nissim Steg on the forecourt of the Memorial of the Unknown Jewish Martyr, in the company of Rabbi Emile Kacman, at the official ceremony of Hazkara, 11 September 1994.

Excerpt from the Revue d'histoire de la Shoah, le Monde Juif, n° 161, 1997

The Israelite Scouts of France in the war