Heroes of the Holocaust:
A Comparison of the Hubermanns and Jeanne Daman
Jeanne Daman
Belgian Roman Catholic school teacher, Jeanne Daman-Scaglione, was twenty-one years old at the time of the Second World War, when she was invited by Fela Perelman to assist in a dangerous initiative. Perelman was a hero among Jews in the day, organizing extensive, remarkable missions for saving Jews from the Nazi genocide. With the increasing restriction imposed on Jewish children, from enrolment in public schools, Jeanne was invited to work at Nos Petits -- Perelman's private kindergarten school for Jews in Brussels. Jeanne responded in the affirmative and ultimately rose to the position of the school's headmistress. But in spite of these pro-Jews' tremendous efforts, their little Jewish pupils were absolutely at risk, at least in the city of Brussels. No Jew was safe in public. Nos Petits was forced to close down, owing to looming Nazi threats and the dreadful tales of roundups. The school's closure was the start of Jeanne's new and riskier job, that of getting in touch with generous Belgians ready to grant refuge to Jews in their homes, alongside fellow Nos Petits teachers. On several occasions, Jeanne herself smuggled Jewish kids to these safe havens, thus risking her own life (Kuznitz).
According to Kuznitz, Jeanne is estimated to have protected almost 2,000 Jewish children faced with deportation, not to mention the many adults she successfully rescued, as well. Among her clever ideas was that of arranging the job of "housemaids" for innumerable mothers of Jewish kids, in Belgian residences....
With the war drawing to a close, Jeanne started actively participating in various resistance movements. Delivering of
intelligence and weaponry transportation were some of the invaluable tasks she performed during the war. After the Holocaust, she went all-out to ensure hidden Jewish kids were reunited with their families. In the years that followed, Jeanne traveled to Israel to visit survivors, on a regular basis. She even joined the Bureau of Speakers of the United Jewish Appeal.
Yad Vashem conferred the honorific title of "Righteous among the Nations" on Jeanne, among several other non-Jews, in the year 1971. On 12th October, 1980, she was honored by the Belgian king for her courageous efforts. An informative interview with Jeanne, conducted by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, reveals that she felt compelled to take action with courage and strength after being witness to the atrocities visited on innocents. She claimed her sense of
duty had become so powerful that, had she held back from doing what she had done, she would have considered herself personally guilty. Jeanne, a self-labeled compassionate person, maintains that her childhood laid the critical groundwork that would subsequently lead her to being counted among the Righteous Gentiles. Her reasons for saving the lives of countless Jews were "ethical," "rational," and "emotional" (Kuznitz).
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