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The Marcel Network: How One French Couple Saved 527 Children from the Holocaust
The Marcel Network How One French Couple Saved 527 Children from the Holocaust Author:Fred Coleman He was a graduate student, and she was recently out of medical school. In 1943, the young Jewish couple found themselves trapped in German-occupied France. They had nothing?no money, no influence, no protection. And yet, improbably, these two deprived people stood up against Nazi atrocities, risking their own lives to save others? children. — Syr... more »ian immigrant Moussa Abadi was only thirty-three and his future wife, Odette Rosenstock, twenty-eight when they formed the Marcel Network to hide French Jewish children in Catholic convents and boarding schools or with Protestant families. Their clandestine organization became one of the most successful operations of Jewish resistance anywhere in Europe. By the end of the war, 527 children owed their survival to the Abadis.
The Marcel Network tells the rescuers? full story for the first time. Drawn from a multitude of sources, including hundreds of documents in the Abadis? archives and dozens of interviews with the now grown children they rescued, the Abadis? story still resonates today. Their struggle against overwhelming odds is an example for others to follow in the world?s current trouble spots.
Fred Coleman?s book also breaks new historic ground, demonstrating how the Catholic Church, French Christians, and Jews themselves did far more to save Jewish lives than is generally known.« less