Belgian teacher who rescued Jewish children from the Nazis dies at 100

A Belgian school teacher recognised as Righteous Among the Nations for her work saving Jewish children from her country’s Nazi occupiers has died at 100. Andrée Geulen is credited with saving 300 to 400 lives in total, and was ultimately awarded honorary citizenship of Israel at a ceremony at Yad Vashem. The Catholic-born teacher was 20-years-old and working at a Brussels school when her Jewish pupils were first made to wear yellow stars. Shocked by this, she ordered all those in her class to wear an apron to school, ensuring that there would be no racial segregation in her classroom. Ms Geulen became increasingly involved in resistance work from that point. She moved to the boarding school she worked at to help hide Jewish children there after meeting Jewish Defence Committee (JDC) worker Ida Sterno. When the school was raided by the Germans and its Jewish inhabitants arrested, Ms Geulen was interrogated. When she was asked if she wasn't ashamed to teach Jews, she replied: “Aren't you ashamed to make war on Jewish children?” After the raid, Ms Geulen continued to aid Jews, ferrying children to farms, convents and host families where they could be hidden. Years later, in an interview with an American academic, she recalled one child asking, “Why can’t I say my name is Sarah? It’s a beautiful name!” Ms Geulen replied: “It’s a very beautiful name,” but at least for a while, “you have to say your name is Suzanne Peters.” Parents - many of whom would never see their children again - were never told where they were being taken, a vital security measure. In some cases the JDC worked with a doctor to identify newborn babies whose mothers wished to surrender them to keep them safe. Ms Geulen later remembered: “Taking children that way, from a mother who has just given birth, is terrible… “Getting onto a train with Jewish children, knowing that the Germans could also get on, that didn’t frighten me. “But to tear a child away from his mother, and not tell her where we were taking him, and to have her cry and cry: ‘Tell me, at least, only tell me where you’re going to take him'!” Ms Geulen died in a nursing home, her grandson confirmed to the Washington Post, without citing a cause.

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