Holocaust Memorial Education Center

Joseph Migneret was the principal of a public elementary school on the Rue Hospitalières St. Gervais, in the heart of the Marais quarter in Paris. The Marais, known as the “Pletzl” in the interwar period, was the Jewish quarter where many Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe had settled.

During the massive round-up of the Jews of Paris on July 16-17, 1942, many of the Jews in the Marais were arrested.  Migneret, who saw how his present and former students were taken away from their homes, held in appalling conditions and incarcerated in camps prior to their deportation, dedicated himself to saving as many Jews as he could. He joined a resistance network and began to provide false documents to fleeing Jews and to shelter others. Sarah Traube, who had attended Migneret’s school, hid for nearly two years in his home. Shlomo Fisher, another student of the school, was hidden by Migneret until a safe place could be found for him.  Migneret supplied others with forged papers that enabled them to reach the South of France. One former student, fourteen-year-old Joseph Schulman, who had been severely wounded while escaping from a transport to Auschwitz and who was hospitalized under police supervision, was taken care of by Migneret, who visited  him and tried to obtain his release.

On March 28, 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Joseph Migneret as Righteous Among the Nations.