Père Jacques

Jacques de Jésus, OCD (born Lucien Bunel; 1900 – 2 June 1945), better known as Père Jacques, was a French Catholic priest and Discalced Carmelite friar. While serving as headmaster of a boarding school run by his order, he took in several Jewish refugees to protect them from the Nazi government of occupation, for which he was arrested and imprisoned in various concentration camps.

Père Jacques was one of those who undertook efforts to help Jews during the Nazi occupation of France. His efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, resulting in his death in Linz, Austria, just weeks after being liberated from the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945.

Pere Jacques was named one of the Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1985, as a non-Jew who risked his life during the Holocaust to save Jews. The cause for his beatification in the Catholic Church was opened in 1990. French film-maker Louis Malle paid tribute to Père Jacques, who was his primary school headmaster, in the 1987 film Au revoir les enfants.