International Women’s Day

On the occasion of the International Women’s Rights Day, the Shoah Memorial salutes the memory of these women who have contributed to change history. 

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

Mila Racine, a young Jewish resistance fighter from the La Wizo movement, was withdrawn to Toulouse and then to Bagnères de Luchon in 1940. She came to the aid of internees in the camps (especially those at Gurs). Head of the MJS group at Saint Gervais le Fayet (Haute Savoie) in 1942. After the occupation of the Italian area by the Germans (September 1943), she organized convoys of children and adults to Switzerland via Annemasse. Arrested on 21 October 1943, she was incarcerated in Annemasse, then Montluc where she hid her Jewish identity. She was deported as a politician from Compiègne to Ravensbrück and then Mauthausen. She was killed during an Allied bombardment of the camp at 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 divorce. Germaine married in the 1930s to Pierre Bernheim. During the war, Germaine, her children, and grandchildren took refuge in Lyon. Pierre enters the 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, and then the National Liberation Movement. They founded the Gallia network. In August 1944, Pierre and Germaine were arrested in Lyon and interned at the Montluc prison. On August 20, Pierre was shot at Bron (Rhône). Germaine was burned to death at Saint-Genis-Laval (Rhône). Pierre Bernheim was made a companion of the Liberation in 1946.

Frida Wattenberg is a member of the Hachomer Hatzaïr. In 1940, at the age of 16, she participated in the Gaullist cell of her Victor Hugo high school in Paris. She led the OSE’s patronage for the children of rue des Rosiers in 1941. She works with Joseph Migneret (Juste) from the school on 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 collected in Clermont-Ferrand the files of the Commissariat aux questions juives, then devoted herself to the search for hidden children. Active again within the Haschomer Hatzaïr, she immigrated to Israel. Back in 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 fellow Resistance members.

Credit: Shoah Memorial