The Mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, unveiled a memorial in late morning in tribute to Odette and Moussa Abadi, the couple who founded the Marcel network, which saved 527 Jewish children from deportation between 1943 and 1945.
News 2017
Bernadette Mesguen is looking for NATHAN FARKAS (JEAN-FRANÇOIS MAHO)
December 5, 2017
Bernadette Mesguen would like to trace a little Jewish boy who had been entrusted to her grandmother, Jeanne Valo Mesguen, when she lived in Cannes.
Jeanne Valo Mesguen was part of the TARTANNE MASSENA network and worked as a nurse for the Red Cross. One evening she came home with a little boy who had to be hidden at all costs. The child was of Czech origin and came from Belgium. He reached Cannes after a long journey whose details we do not know. He was taken away by a certain Monsieur Francis (a nom de guerre). Was he part of the Marcel network?
Unveiling of a memorial in Nice in memory of the Marcel network
October 26, 2017
As part of the conference “Words, images and notes in the midst of the storm: cinema, theatre, poetry and music on the Côte d’Azur between 1939 and 1945”, a memorial stone was unveiled.
Since midday on Thursday, October 26, 2017, a memorial has graced the corner of avenue Thiers and rue Amiral-de-Grasse.
Death of Gérard Descours
September 26, 2017
We are saddened to announce the death, on September 8, 2017, of Gérard Descours, husband of Marie Gatard, a long-standing friend of Odette.
Gérard Descours passed the entrance examination to the ENA at the age of 20. He devoted his career to the great adventure of the French oil industry.
Words, images and notes in the midst of the storm
September 18, 2017
Cinema, theatre, poetry and music on the Côte d’Azur between 1939 and 1945
On October 26, AMEJDAM (Association for the memory of the Jewish children deported from the Alpes-Maritimes) is organising a conference in Nice at the Centre Universitaire Méditerranéen (CUM). Les Enfants et Amis ABADI will be there to talk about Moussa Abadi and his work in the theatre, and also to inaugurate a square named after Odette and Moussa Abadi.
Meeting between the Lycée Morvan and the Marcel network
September 14, 2017
On Wednesday, June 7, Jeannette Wolgust and Andrée Karsenti went to meet the pupils of the Cours Morvan to share their story as hidden children and, more generally, the story of the Marcel network. Their hosts share their account of the occasion.
2017 commemoration for Odette and Moussa
September 11, 2017
On Sunday, September 10, we gathered once again around Odette and Moussa to honour their memory.
Three generations came together around the grave of Odette and Moussa Abadi. Hidden children, friends, nephews, children of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Righteous formed a large family circle around those to whom we had come to pay tribute.
Fred’s teddy bear
August 27, 2017
Sunday, September 17, 2017 at 2.30 p.m. at the Mémorial de la Shoah
A woollen teddy bear tells its story, from the Netherlands under Nazi occupation to Israel by way of the United States. Fred Lessing, its owner, is a hidden child. He never parted with the bear, his best friend and confidant, even after the war. Many years later, it was at Yad Vashem, where it is on display, that the author fell under the bear’s spell.
In the presence of the author Iris Argaman, the illustrator Avi Ofer, and the translators Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat and Livia Parnes.
With the support of the cultural services of the Embassy of Israel.
Death of Juan Freund
May 11, 2017
We are saddened to announce the death of Juan Freund, an Abadi child, on May 11.
Juan Freund was hidden by the Marcel network at Don Bosco in Nice, a vocational school for boys. He was one of the 527 children saved by the Marcel network.
The association Les Enfants et Amis Abadi shares the grief of his family and loved ones and offers them its deepest condolences.
New book by Guy Foissy: MOTS JE VOUS AIME
May 5, 2017
Our friend Guy Foissy has just published a new collection of poetry entitled “MOTS JE VOUS AIME suivi de Manisfeste du poème sans mots dire (Charte du Titrisme)” (Words, I love you, followed by a Manifesto of the poem without saying a word)
Yom HaShoah: April 23 and 24, 2017
April 22, 2017
Every year, in Israel and all over the world, tribute is paid on Yom HaShoah to the 6 million Jews who died during the Second World War, victims of the Nazis and their collaborators.
In France, 76,000 Jews – including 11,400 children – were deported to the death camps. Only 2,600 of them survived.
2017 General Meeting
April 22, 2017
This year, our association’s ordinary general meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 26 at 6 p.m. at the Centre communautaire juif de Paris (119 rue La Fayette, 75010 Paris).
Odette Rosenstock honoured
March 8, 2017
On March 8, International Women’s Day, the CRIF honoured six exceptional women. Among them was Odette Rosenstock.
Memorial to the Righteous in Châteauroux: a book
March 1, 2017
On April 17, 2016, a memorial in honour of the Righteous of the Indre was inaugurated in Châteauroux.
Béatrice Chervonaz has published a book about the memorial to the Righteous inaugurated in Châteauroux on April 17, 2016. Among other things, it contains illustrations of the inauguration, the list of the Righteous, testimonies, the rescue organisations, the internment sites in the Indre, etc.
Class 1 MATP on a study trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland
February 20, 2017
On February 2, the pupils of class 1 MATP went to Poland to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau site. This study trip, organised by the Mémorial de la Shoah and funded by the Regional Council, was part of the “Memory and Citizenship” educational project carried out with the class since September. Accompanied by the Mémorial’s historian-guides and the Museum’s guides, the pupils discovered this emblematic site of the Shoah and came to understand what was at stake in an undertaking of programmed, methodical, industrial death aimed at wiping an entire people off the face of the Earth.
Marie Gatard at the Historical Novel Fair
January 28, 2017
On February 9, our friend Marie Gatard’s new book, “La source MAD”, will be published.
In beautiful, spare prose recounting the powerful passion between a man and a woman, Marie Gatard weaves together the thread of two lives united in resistance to Nazism. […] Her very fine book writes a still largely unknown page in the history of the secret services thrown into the world war between Berlin, Paris, Vienna and Budapest.
Olivier Forcade
Marie Gatard will present her book at the Historical Novel Fair in Levallois-Perret on Sunday, February 26, 2017.
A new address for the website
January 28, 2017
To be consistent with the association’s name, our website’s address is changing and becomes:
www.lesenfantsetamisabadi.fr
Update your bookmarks :)
The Beit Project
January 23, 2017
“The Beit Project” is an innovative urban and social project, carried out with the support of the European Union, which aims to turn heritage sites into educational settings for dialogue and debate, linking history to the major contemporary issues.
David Stoleru, son of Sylvie Mandel (an Abadi child), runs this project and on Monday, January 23, 2017 will present work done by Paris primary and secondary school pupils on the heritage of the 12th arrondissement around the town hall – including, of course, Place Odette et Moussa Abadi.
Programme of the Mémorial de la Shoah
January 3, 2017
The Mémorial de la Shoah has just published its programme for the first quarter of 2017.
Among the many fine events, we are pleased to draw your attention to one by our friend Hélios Azoulay: “Jeanne d’Arc sauvée des cendres” (Joan of Arc saved from the ashes – a concert in two acts for string quartet, female voice and narrator) on Thursday, January 12.