Lili Garel Explained

Élise "Lili" Garel (; 5 July 1921, Paris9 November 2013, Paris) was a French Jewish resistance fighter who, with her husband Georges Garel (Grigori Garfinkel) saved many Jewish children during the Shoah.

Biography

Élise Tager^[1] was born in 1921 in Paris. Her parents were Russian Jews who emigrated to France in 1919. She participated in the Demonstration of 11 November 1940 of high school and college students at Place de l'Étoile and was imprisoned as a Jew for three months in Fresnes Prison. She took refuge in Lyon at the end of 1941.^[2]

Resistant

Lili Garel, as a courier between Nice and Lyon, participated in the rescue of Jewish children, with her husband, Georges. After the war, Georges Garel became firstly director general, then president of l'Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE).^{[3] [4]} Her resistance name was Elisabeth-Jeanne Tissier.^[5] She was imprisoned at Fort Montluc in Lyon.^[6]

During the "night of Vénissieux" (28–29 August 1943), 108 Jewish children and 80 adults were taken out of the internment camp in Vénissieux (Lyon metropolitan area) and saved from deportation.^[7] Shortly after this event, in 1943, Lili Tager and Georges Garel married.^[8]

Vénissieux marked the beginning of Georges Garel's action in the field with the OSE, until then he had been an engineer in Lyon, and it was also Lili Tager's first involvement in the field. At 20 years of age, she had just been hired in the OSE office in Lyon, as a part-time secretary and as a social worker. Years later, she had not forgotten the "nightmare" of Vénissieux.^{[9] [10] [11]} Georges Garel's memoir was published thanks to the "tenacious will" of his wife.^[12] Historian Valérie Perthuis-Portheret made a film which chronicles the life of Lili Garel, and in particular her role in the "night of Vénissieux".^[7]

Family

Georges and Lili Garel had seven children:^[5] Jean-Renaud, polytechnician and biochemist; Anne, doctor; Michel, curator of Hebrew manuscripts at the National Library of France; Laurent, doctor; Thomas, normalien and physicist; Denis, doctor; and Nathalie, publicist.^[13] Georges Garel died in 1979. Lili Garel died in Paris on 9 November 2013, at the age of 93.^[1]

Honours

• Honoured at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., in November 2000.
• The headquarters of the Children's Aid Work (OSE) at 11 Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple in Paris, until then known as the 'Centre Georges Garel', became the 'Centre Georges and Lili Garel', on 23 June 2014.^[14]

Bibliography

• Deborah Dwork, Children with a Star: Jewish Youth in Nazi Europe. Yale University Press, 1993;,
• Valérie Perthuis, Le sauvetage des enfants juifs du camp de Vénissieux : août 1942, (tr. "The Rescue of Jewish Children from the Vénissieux Camp: August 19422), Lyon, Editions lyonnaises d'art et d'histoire, 1997;
• Deborah Dwork & Robert Jan Pelt. Holocaust: A History. W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.,
• Georges Garel. Le sauvetage des enfants juifs par l'OSE. (tr. "The rescue of Jewish children by the OSE"). Editions Le Manuscrit, 2012;,

Notes and References

1. Web site: Lili Garel nous a quittés à la mi-novembre . Lili Garel passed away in mid-November . PMH Dieulefit . 23 February 2021 . fr-FR . 1 December 2013.
2. Web site: La Lettre: Section 'ILS NOUS ONT QUITTE' . mrj-moi.com . 23 February 2021.
3. Web site: Hommage à Lili Garel . Oeuvre de secours aux enfants . 23 February 2021 . fr-FR . 18 February 2014.
4. Web site: Inauguration du Mur des Noms [Les Enfants et Amis ABADI] ]. www.lesenfantsetamisabadi.fr . 23 February 2021 . 25 May 2010.
5. Web site: Sauver les enfants durant l'Occupation en France . JForum . 23 February 2021 . fr-FR . 21 March 2018.
6. Web site: Dévoilement de plaque en hommage à Charles Lederman . data.over-blog-kiwi.com . 23 February 2021 . 5 November 2009.
7. Web site: Hommage appuyé à Lili Garel au siège de l’OSE . Oeuvre de secours aux enfants . 23 February 2021 . fr-FR . 26 February 2014.
8. Web site: Cindy Banse . Laurent Beauguitte . Mesurer l’efficacité d’un réseau de sauvetage d’enfantsjuifs: l'exemple du circuit Garel (Lyon, 1942-1944) . hal.archives-ouvertes.fr . 23 February 2021.
9. Deborah Dwork & Robert Jan Pelt. Holocaust: A History, 2002, p. 334
10. Web site: Deligia . Florent . Soixante-dix ans après le sauvetage des enfants juifs du camp de Vénissieux, elles se souviennent . Seventy years after the rescue of Jewish children from the Vénissieux camp, they remember . Lyon Capitale . 23 February 2021 . fr-FR . 31 August 2012.
11. Web site: Lemeunier . Jean-Charles . Événement unique dans l'histoire de la persécution, le sauvetage des enfants juifs de Vénissieux . Unique event in the history of the persecution, the rescue of the Jewish children of Vénissieux . Expressions . 23 February 2021 . fr-FR . 31 August 2012.
12. Book: Garel . Georges . Le sauvetage des enfants juifs par l'OSE . 2012 . Editions Le Manuscrit . 978-2-304-04046-3 . 35 . 23 February 2021 . fr.
13. Web site: Spécial Guerres n°1 fév/mar 2014 . preprod.1001mags.com . 16 September 2020.
14. Web site: Dévoilement de deux nouvelles plaques au siège de l’OSE en présence du Grand Rabbin de France . Unveiling of two new plaques at OSE headquarters in the presence of the Chief Rabbi of France . Oeuvre de secours aux enfants . 23 February 2021 . fr-FR . 24 June 2014.