International Women’s Day

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, the Shoah Memorial pays tribute to the memory of these women who have contributed to changing history. 

Marianne Cohn, young Jewish resistance fighter of the Zionist Youth Movement in Grenoble in 1942. Marianne Cohn is a liaison officer. She transports Jewish children to Switzerland in connection with other Jewish networks of the Resistance. On May 31, 1944, Marianne Cohn is arrested by the Germans with a group of 28 children. They are locked up at the Pax prison in Annemasse. Marianne is tortured by the Gestapo. Taken in the night of 3 to 4 July 1944 by agents of the Gestapo, she is found ten days later, dead and mutilated, near Ville-la-Grand (Haute-Savoie).

Mila Racine, a young Jewish resistance fighter of the Wizo movement, is withdrawn to Toulouse then Bagnères de Luchon in 1940. She helps the internees in the camps (especially those of Gurs). Responsible for the MJS group of Saint Gervais le Fayet (Haute Savoie) in 1942. After the occupation of the Italian zone by the Germans (September 1943), she organized convoys of children and adults to Switzerland via Annemasse. Arrested on October 21, 1943, she was incarcerated in Annemasse, then Montluc where she hides her Jewish identity. She is deported as a politician from Compiègne to Ravensbrück then Mauthausen. She is killed during an Allied bombardment on the camp of Mauthausen.

Germaine Netter was born on February 14, 1886, in Vézelise (Meurthe-et-Moselle). She has three children with her husband Julien Katz. Julien and Germaine are divorcing. Germaine married Pierre Bernheim in the 1930s as her second husband. During the war, Germaine, her children and grandchildren were refugees in Lyon. Pierre enters resistance, with his cousin Jean-Pierre Lévy, co-founder of the Franc-Tireur movement, and Germaine. They are active within Franc-Tireur, the United Movements of the Resistance then the National Liberation Movement. They found the Gallia network. In August 1944, Pierre and Germaine are arrested in Lyon and interned at the Montluc prison. On August 20, Pierre is shot at Bron (Rhône). Germaine is burned to death in Saint-Genis-Laval (Rhône). Pierre Bernheim was made a companion of the Liberation in 1946.

Frida Wattenberg is a member of Hachomer Hatzaïr. In 1940, she is 16 years old, she participates in the Gaullist cell of her Victor Hugo high school in Paris. She leads the OSE patronage for the children of the rue des Rosiers in 1941. She works with Joseph Migneret (Juste) from the school in the rue des Hospitalières Saint Gervais for the rescue of Jewish children. She goes to the Italian zone where she continues her resistance activities with the children. At the Liberation, Frida retrieves in Clermont-Ferrand the files of the Commissariat for Jewish Issues, then dedicates herself to the search for hidden children. Active again within the Hachomer Hatzaïr, she immigrates to Israel. Returned to France, she works in memory of the Jewish resistance in France. Frida died in 2020, In our photo, Frida, 2^th starting from the right, with other resistant comrades.

Credit: Shoah Memorial