Laurent Thévenet is a historian, author of a book on railway workers recognized as "Righteous among the Nations", La Revue d'histoire des chemins de fer, special issue no. 9, 2023. Indeed, during the Second World War, the Occupant and the Vichy regime adopted anti-Semitic measures in 1940 leading to the arrest and deportation of Jews from France.
The museum of the Pithiviers station inaugurated on July 17, 2022, aims to transmit the memory of the raids, internment camps of Loiret as well as the deportation. Nearly 8 railway convoys left the stations of Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande, the deportation of nearly 8100 Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau. A total of about 16,000 Jews passed through these places.
Yad Vashem, the International Institute for the Memory of the Shoah, has the mission to preserve the memory of the nearly 6 million Jewish victims of the Shoah. Among his duties, he awarded the title of «Just among the Nations» to those who rescued Jews.
This conference traces the journey of several «Righteous Among the Nations», railway workers and committed to saving men, women, children and sometimes families. They are 56 railway workers honored with the title of Righteous among the Nations. Beyond the organized Resistance, despite the dangers and risks, these railwaymen acted to save Jews, children, adults and entire families. But who are they? Why did they act? Under what circumstances did they protect, shelter, shelter, hide, transport these children and adults? Following a brief presentation of the context of persecutions in space and time, Laurent Thévenet tries to answer these questions by narratives of the lives of these railway workers, illustrated by numerous photographs and narrate the rescues made.
The story of these men and women, railway employees, Righteous among the Nations, contributes to enrich the knowledge of a little-known part of the rescue of the Jews of France by railway workers.