Simone Weil Lipman papers

Simone Lipman (1920-2011) was born Simone Margaret Weil in Ringendorf (Bas-Rhin) to Abraham and Jeanne Weil. She moved to Strasbourg at age three with her parents and her brother, Roger. In 1941, Lipman began relief work with the Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE) at the concentration camp at Rivesaltes. When Rivesaltes closed at the end of 1942, she began working at the Poulouzat children’s home near Limoges. In 1943 she moved to Châteauroux, assumed a non-Jewish identity, and helped remove Jewish children from OSE homes, assign them non-Jewish identities, and move them into hiding. After the war she helped reopen the OSE home in Montintin and establish the Petit Monde children’s home near Paris. She lived temporarily in the United States in 1946 and 1947, returned to France for two years, and immigrated permanently in 1949. The Simone Weil Lipman papers consist of biographical materials and photographs documenting Lipman’s work rescuing Jewish children with the Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE) in Rivesaltes, Poulouzat, and Châteauroux during the Holocaust and caring for child survivors at the le Petit Monde children’s home near Paris after the war. Biographical materials include identification papers and education and employment records in Lipman’s assumed name (Simone Werlin) and attestations documenting her work rescuing and caring for Jewish children with the OSE at Rivesaltes and Châteauroux during the Holocaust. Photographs depict prisoners, buildings, volunteer resident social workers, children, and scout troops at the concentration camp at Rivesaltes; children and staff at the OSE children’s home in Poulouzat; and children and staff at the Petit Monde children’s home near Paris.