Postcard with View of Beach, Chambon-Sur-Lignon, France

Front: Black and white photograph of people on a beach.Back: Message written in black ink. Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: While the Nazis and their Vichy collaborators delivered 83,000 Jews--including 10,000 children--to concentration camps, the ordinary citizens of the town of Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon, in the hills of southeastern France, took in and protected Jews at great peril to their own lives. Approximately 5,000 Jews were saved, sheltered, educated, or, with the help of the underground, spirited to Spain or Switzerland. Jews were housed in private homes, on farms and public institutions, and when Gestapo or their Vichy French collaborators approached, villagers would hide the children in the forest. As soon as they left, villagers would sing a song signaling that it was safe to emerge from hiding. This extraordinary effort involving the entire village was guided by the Protestant pastor of the village, Andre Trochme, and his wife Magda. Despite being threatened by Vichy collaborators, he would not betray his charges. His cousin Daniel Trochme, however, was arrested and sent to the concentration camp Majdanek, where he perished. When Andre Trochme was finally forced to go into hiding, his wife Magda continued his work of sheltering the Jews of Le Chambon until the end of the war. The entire community of Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon has been honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Gentiles, the first community to be honored.https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1648/thumbnail.jp