Élise Rivet, also known as Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie (January 19, 1890, Draria,

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

– March 30, 1945, Ravensbrück concentration camp, Germany) was a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

nun and

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

heroine. Rivet volunteered to go to the gas chamber, in place of a mother, in the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück.

Early life

Rivet was born to an Alsatian mother and French naval officer father. After the death of her father in 1910, she moved with her mother to Lyon. She worked for a time in a hair salon before joining the convent of the medical sisters of ''Notre Dame de Compassion'' in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

in 1912. In 1933 she became Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie, the convent's Mother Superior.

World War II

After the fall of the

French Third Republic The French Third Republic (, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France durin ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, she began hiding refugees from the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

and eventually used her convent to store weapons and ammunition for the

Mouvements Unis de la Résistance The Communist Party of Belgium (, , abbr. PCB) is a communist party in Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is border ...

(MUR) at the request of Albert Chambonnet. On March 24, 1944, she and her assistant were arrested by the Gestapo and taken to the Montluc prison in Lyon. From there, she was taken to

Romainville Romainville () is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, located in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. Location It is located from the center of Paris. History On 24 July 1867, a part of the territory of Romainville was detached ...

, before being shipped to

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a Nazi concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure of 1 ...

near

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Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. There, stripped of her religious garments, she was forced into hard labor. Rivet volunteered to go to the gas chamber on March 30, 1945, in place of a mother only weeks before Germany surrendered unconditionally. She was 55 years old.

Legacy

In 1961, the government of France honored her with her portrait on a Heroes of the Resistance postage stamp. A street bearing her name was inaugurated in Brignais (Lyon) on December 2, 1979. In 1996, she was recognized as

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...

. In 1997, she was posthumously awarded the Médaille des Justes. In 1999, a lecture hall at the Institut des Sciences de l'Homme in Lyon was named ''Salle Élise Rivet'' in her honor.

References

External links

French-language biographical article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rivet, Elise 1890 births 1945 deaths French Resistance members Female resistance members of World War II French women in World War II French people who died in Ravensbrück concentration camp People from Algiers French civilians killed in World War II People killed by gas chamber by Nazi Germany 20th-century French nuns French Righteous Among the Nations

Early life

World War II

Legacy

See also

References

External links