Berthe Hirsch
Berthe Hirsch was a French Jewish resistance fighter, deported with her husband Sigismond Hirsch in convoy no. 62. Her husband survived, but she did not. Their son Jean-Raphaël Hirsch is France's youngest member of the Resistance.
Biography
Berthe Weyl was born on 16 May 1907 in Strasbourg to Lucie Strauss. The latter died at the age of 30 while Berthe Weyl was still a child. She became a social worker at the Hospitalières-Saint-Gervais elementary school in Paris's 4th arrondissement and at the dispensary on rue des Deux-Ponts, also in the 4th arrondissement.She joined the Resistance in Paris in 1941, working as an intelligence officer for the Armée Volontaire. In 1942, she and her husband joined the Éclaireuses et éclaireurs israélites de France in Moissac, a house run by her sister-in-law Shatta Simon and her husband, which sheltered many Jewish children. During their time there, the couple helped hide the children from the Nazis with Catholic families.
On 18 October 1943, after someone denounced her, she was arrested by the Gestapo in Saint-Michel, Tarn-et-Garonne. Interned at Drancy, she was deported to Auschwitz with her husband on convoy No. 62 on 20 November 1943.
Honors
- Médaille militaire
- Croix de guerre 1939–1945 à titre posthume
- Médaille de la Résistance française à titre posthume
- Reconnue « Morte pour la France »