Berthe Fournier

In October 1941, Berthe Fournier, a young widow who lived in Salviac (Lot), rented two rooms in her house to Jewish refugees from Paris, Joseph and Pauline Sirota and their little daughter Elisabeth, then three years old. Also in Salviac, but in a hamlet called Pech Curet, a young couple from Paris had come to settle a year earlier. Pierre Leglaive, a plumber, and Raymonde, his wife, had decided to follow the exhortations of Marshal Pétain and “return to the land.” They had undertaken to bring an abandoned farm back to life. The two Parisian families soon found each other and became friends. In August 1942, while on a trip to Paris, Berthe Fournier, went to see the mother of her tenant Pauline Sirota. She was shaken by what she found: a badly undernourished family living in fear and insecurity. She decided to bring Pauline’s fourteen-year-old half-sister, Gisèle Cahen, 14, back to Salviac. Courageously, though she was literally trembling with fright, she crossed the checkpoint at the demarcation line with the Jewish teenager who had no permit. In March 1944, nearly all the Jews still living in Salviac were arrested during a raid carried out by German police. Joseph Sirota, who was working for Alsthom, the firm that was electrifying the railway line, was spared for the moment, as was his family. However, their relatives were arrested and deported. The following night, Pierre Leglaive went to Berthe Fournier’s house and, secretly, brought the four Jewish refugees back to Pech Curet, where Raymonde, his wife, had just delivered her third child (the couple ultimately had fourteen children). 

The newcomers all gave a hand in the house and helped with the babies. Elisabeth, who was too young, was entrusted to a foster family in the village. Her parents only visited her at night. The situation went from bad to worse, especially after the Normandy landing of June 6, 1944. Retreating SS troops weretorching farms and villages whenever they found Jews or Resistance fighters. None of the Sirotas dared set foot outside the farm during the day, until the liberation. Referring to her dramatic crossing of the demarcation line with Berthe Fournier, who became Mme Naulin after remarrying, Gisèle later wrote “Since that day I call her “maman Betty” since I owe her my life as I owe it to my mother.” As for Pauline, after she was widowed, she retired to Salviac to live near the people who saved her and had become her second family.

On May 3, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Berthe Fournier-Naulin and Pierre and Raymonde Leglaive as Righteous Among the Nations.