The Nun Who Saved French Jewish Children 

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The “free zone” in the south of France was hardly free. The government of Marshal Philippe Pétain, based in Vichy, passed anti-Jewish laws, allowed Jews to be rounded up in Baden and Alsace Lorraine for internment, and seized Jewish assets.

On  August 23, 1942, the archbishop of Toulouse wrote the following letter to his clergymen, asking them to read it to their congregations:

In our diocese, moving scenes have occurred. Children, women, men, fathers and mothers are treated like a lowly herd. Members of a single family are separated from each other and carted away to an unknown destination. The Jews are men, the Jewesses are women. They are part of the human race; they are our brothers like so many others. A Christian cannot forget this.

He protested to the Vichy authorities about its Jewish policy, but most of the French Catholic hierarchy remained silent. Out of 100 French bishops, he was one of only six who spoke out against the Nazi regime.

The archbishop’s message struck a chord with Sister Denise Bergon, the young mother superior of the Convent of Notre Dame de Massip in Capdenac, 150km (93 miles) northeast of Toulouse.
“This call deeply moved us, and such emotion grabbed our hearts. A favorable response to this letter was a testament to the strength of our religion, above all parties, all races,” she wrote after the war in 1946 … It was also an act of patriotism, as by defending the oppressed, we were defying the persecutors.”

The convent ran a boarding school, and Sister Denise decided to hide Jewish children among her pupils. But she worried about endangering her fellow nuns and about the dishonesty that this would entail. By the winter of 1942, Sister Denise Bergon was gathering Jewish children who hid in the wooded valleys and gorges of the region around Capdenac, known as L'Aveyron.

As roundups of Jews intensified, the number of Jewish children taking refuge in the convent eventually grew to eighty-three. One girl, Helene Beck, finally feeling safe, was overwhelmed with emotion on her arrival: “At the beginning, Madame Bergon took me into a room, and she tried to make me feel as if my parents were here, and so she was like a mother really.” 

Another Jewish refugee from Alsace Lorraine was a boy named Albert Seifer, who was a few years younger than the sisters. “Surrounded by big walls, we were like in a fortress,” he said. “We were very happy. We did not really feel the war despite the fact that we were surrounded by danger.”

Parents and guardians sent their children with money, jewelry, or other valuables to pay for the children's upkeep before escaping from France. Sister Denise kept careful records.

Other than Sister Denise, only the school’s director, its chaplain, and two other sisters knew the truth about the children. The other nuns knew that many of the children were refugees from Alsace-Lorraine but did not know they were Jewish.

The longer the war continued, the more dangerous the children’s position became, and Sister Denise began to worry about possible searches. According to the sister’s 1946 journal,  “Even though all compromising papers and the jewelry from the children’s families had already been hidden in the most secret corners of the house, we did not feel safe. So, late at night, when everyone was asleep in the house, we dug a hole for the hidden things in the convent’s garden, and we buried as deep as possible anything that could be compromising.”

In May 1944, a battle-hardened elite SS Division arrived in the area from the Eastern front. Sister Denise hatched a plan with the Resistance, who agreed to fire warning shots if the enemy was approaching. “The children would go to sleep, the older ones paired up with the younger ones and, at the first detonation heard in the night, in silence but in haste, they must get to the woods and leave the house to the invaders,” she wrote in 1946. Nonetheless, she decided to hide the children without waiting for the invaders to arrive. One group was taken to the chapel. Inside was as trap door, which, when opened by the chaplain, could hide seven children. Though they didn’t enter the convent, the SS did leave a trail of destruction at its doorstep.

After southern France was liberated, in August 1944, the Jewish children slowly left the convent. 
They were sad to say goodbye to Sister Denise and regularly visited her for the rest of her life.

Sister Denise remained at the convent and continued working until her death in 2006 at the age of 94. Later in life, she helped disadvantaged children and then immigrants from North Africa.
In 1980, she was honored by the Holocaust Memorial Center, Yad Vashem, as Righteous Among the Nations. A street is named after her in Capdenac, the only memorial to her besides one on the convent grounds. It read: This cedar tree was planted on 5 April 1992 in memory of the saving of 83 Jewish children (from December 1942 to July 1944) by Denise Bergon … at the request of Monsignor Jules-Geraud Saliège, archbishop of Toulouse.

It stands close to the spot where Sister Denise buried the jewelry and other valuables parents left behind and which she returned, untouched, after the war to help the families start again.