Amparo de Los Remedios Otero de Pappo (1896–1987) was a

Cuban Cuban may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Cuba, a country in the Caribbean * Cubans, people from Cuba, or of Cuban descent ** Cuban exile, a person who left Cuba for political reasons, or a descendant thereof * Cuban citizen, a perso ...

-born

milliner Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter. Historically, milliners, typically women shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of g ...

who was honored as being among the

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sav ...

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

for saving French Jews during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. Amparo de Los Remedios Otero emigrated with her family from Cuba to France in the late 1920s, settling in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

to pursue a hatmaking career. A Catholic, she married Jacob Pappo, a Bulgarian Jew, in 1931. They had a son, Charles-Henri, in 1932, and Jacob Pappo died the following year. After World War II began, she relocated with her son to

Siran, Cantal Siran () is a commune in the Cantal department in south-central France. Population See also *Communes of the Cantal department The following is a list of the 246 communes of the Cantal department of France. Intercommunalities The com ...

. During the war years, Pappo sheltered her husband's family – including her mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, nephews and niece – and a teenage Jewish refugee named Liliane Frangi from arrest and potential deportation to the Nazi death camps. On 14 July 2011, Yad Vashem recognized Amparo Otero de Pappo as Righteous Among the Nations, making her the first – and, to date, only – Cuban national to be honored.

References

1896 births 1987 deaths People from Havana Catholic Righteous Among the Nations Cuban emigrants to France {{Cuba-bio-stub