Death of Jeannette Wolgust

November 10, 2024

It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of Jeannette Wolgust, a hidden child and the founder of our association, on November 5, 2024.

For Jeannette

It was grey that morning at the cemetery in Noisy-le-Sec, where the branches of the trees bore their last yellow leaves.

Jeannette Wolgust’s heart stopped on the morning of November 5, leaving me as if struck by lightning. There are blank pages on which it is hard to write. The blank page is Silence, and great sorrows are mute, but I want to bring her fully to life among us – to recall her strength, her energy, her many commitments, her testimonies, her tenderness.

To remember her life stories, to marvel at the intelligence of a child of twelve and a half who was able to cross France right under the Germans’ noses, holding her little brother by the hand – she who had “never taken the metro”; who at 13, hidden by Odette and Moussa at the Jeanne d’Arc convent in Grasse, was able to think of the network’s safety with her companions (Marthoune, Françoise and Denise), taking care to keep the secret of their anonymity; who protected her little brother by suggesting to Moussa that he be placed with a family in Grasse to keep him safe, and visited him twice a week… Maturity at a forced march… And what can one say of her determination, when Nice was liberated, to find her parents again in Brunoy?

From this story, from being torn from the calm of her Parisian life, from the fear that marked that so painful period, she kept her yellow star in her wallet like a talisman: she would show it to the pupils she spoke to, talking of her “luck” as opposed to the deportees, for whom she had the greatest respect.

The Six-Day War triggered another fear: that “it might happen again” – hence her activism in various organisations such as the Front Juif Unifié and, among others, the large Hidden Children’s Association. She wanted a synagogue for her town of Noisy-le-Sec, and got one; she looked after elderly people, taking them on trips; she organised cultural events, raised funds for tzedakah (charity sales), and bore witness wherever people were willing to listen to the story of Odette and Moussa – all while assisting her husband Laurent in his work as a doctor, so appreciated by his patients.

Throughout the post-war years she stayed in touch with her “Mademoiselle”, who used to visit them in Grasse; it was at Odette and Moussa’s request, in 1995, following negationist statements by a history teacher, that Jeannette hosted a radio programme to try to find some of the “children” they had hidden… that is how I got to know her… how we chose each other to be part of the same family. We were sisters in Abadi.

When Odette died, a few months after Moussa, it was again Jeannette who gathered the “children” at her home to found the association Les Enfants et Amis Abadi, which she chaired and kept alive.

It is inconceivable to me to think of loss… death… never again… so intertwined is Jeannette with my life. Her absence, so recent, is already so heavy to bear.

To the question that hides so much – “how old was she?” – I answer: the age of love, of tenderness. Is there an age at which one accepts the loss of a loved one?

Goodbye, Jeannette.

Andrée Poch Karsenti

Testimony of Jeannette Wolgust

Jeannette was a storyteller. She never ran out of stories, anecdotes and memories. We invite you to watch (again) the video testimonies of Jeannette that we recorded a few years ago.

From Paris to the Marcel network

Jeannette Wolgust was 14 and her brother 7 when they had to flee. Jeannette tells of two children’s journey across France to survive.

Depersonalisation

To save the children, Odette and Moussa Abadi “depersonalised” them, giving them false identities and hiding them in various institutions and families.

The star

Jeannette Wolgust was still only a child when the Vichy government forced Jews to wear the star. Jeannette tells the story of her star.

Passing on

Jeannette Wolgust was 14 at the time. Despite many precise memories, she did not tell what she had lived through for many years.