Samuel, Vivette 1919-

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SAMUEL, Vivette 1919-

PERSONAL: Born May 21, 1919, in Paris, France; daughter of Nahum (a journalist) and Rachel (a journalist; maiden name, Spirt) Herman; married Julien Samuel, 1942; children: Françoise Samuel Elbaz, Jean Pierre, Nicole Samuel Guinard. Education: Attended Sorbonne, University of Paris. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES: Home—44 rue de la gare de Reuilly, 75012 Paris, France.

CAREER: Associatión pour le déportés internés de la resistance, Paris, France, social worker, c. early 1940s; Union Mondiale pour la Protection de la Sante des Populations Juives et Oeuvres de Secours aux Enfants, Paris, assistant director and director; retired.

AWARDS, HONORS: Chevalier, French Legion of Honor; Memory of the Shoah prize, Jewish Foundation, Paris, France, 1996, for Sauver les enfants.

WRITINGS:

Sauver les enfants, [Paris, France], 1995, translation by Charles B. Paul published as Rescuing the Children: A Holocaust Memoir, foreword by Elie Wiesel, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 2002.

Samuel's book was also published in German.

SIDELIGHTS: Vivette Samuel told CA: "My primary motivation for writing was to offer a testimony about the children in camps in France during World War II. The account was based on my own writings from 1943 and by interviews of children. In 1992 I started working with my granddaughter, Judith Elbaz, who was twenty-two years old, just the age I had been during my work in rescuing children. It was important for both of us. When the book was published in France, Judith wrote the first preface. In the English edition, Elie Wiesel, who was one of the children we helped, wrote the second preface. A long introduction for the translation was written by Charles B. Paul, He and his sister were also among the children described in the book."