Daniel Trocmé (1910- 1944) in

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (, literally "Le Chambon on Lignon"; ) is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France. Residents have been primarily Huguenot or Protestant since the 17th century. During World War II these Huguenot ...

, France. He taught physics, chemistry and natural sciences. He became the principal of a

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

in 1941. Daniel Trocmé got sent to different

detention camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

s until he died in 1944 from exhaustion and sickness. He was recognized as a

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, ...

for saving Jews in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France.

Activity During WWII

When Trocmé became the principal of a boarding school, La Maison des Roches, in 1941 in France, he helped many Jewish

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

children there, an act that was explicitly against the law, and fought for human rights . Between the years 1941- 1943 Daniel Trocmé and his cousin André Trocmé, managed to smuggle about 5,000 Jews through the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and saved them from death. In June 1943 the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

army broke into the school to search for Trocmé and his Jewish students. At that time, Trocmé wasn't present at school. Although he could have escaped, he chose to return to his Jewish students. Under threats, he got taken along with 18 of his students to be arrested. While he was being investigated, he continued to show courage and did everything to lift the spirit of his students. He claimed against the Nazis that he was just protecting the helpless. Daniel Trocmé got sent to different detention camps until he died in 1944

Majdanek Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had three gas chambers, two wooden gallows, ...

from exhaustion and sickness at the age of 34.

Honors

On March 18, 1976,

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

recognized Daniel Trocmé as a

. https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/trocme.html

References

External links

The partisans and ghetto fighters website: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon
{{Authority control French Righteous Among the Nations 1910 births 1944 deaths French people who died in the Holocaust