Erich Schwam, a Jewish refugee who arrived in the village with his mother and father in 1943, left the legacy of an amount considered to be at least several hundred thousand euros in the commune in south-central France, according to the notary responsible for the will or. .
“We are extremely honored and will use the amount according to Mr. Schwam’s will,” City Deputy Mayor Denise Vallat told CNN on Saturday.
In his will, dated November 9, 2020, Schwam wrote that he wanted to “thank them [the village residents] for the reception many have extended me in the field of education. “He demanded that the money be used to fund scholarships and schools in the village.
There may also be large contributions to three foundations that support health workers, children with leukemia and animal rights, according to a city hall press release.
Le Chambon and nearby villages welcomed Jewish refugees, mostly children, after 1940, according to the town hall website. Barack Obama mentioned the village in his remarks at the April 2009 Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, and Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, awarded the commune the title of Righteous in 1990.
Schwam’s father was a doctor, and his mother helped set up a library in the Rivesaltes camp, one of many set up by the Vichy regime to shut down Jews. Thousands of people were transported from there to Auschwitz, according to the Jewish Virtual Library.
Friedel Reiter, a young Swiss social worker who volunteered to help refugees at the time, recorded the family’s information and it is likely she helped move them to Le Chambon when the Rivesaltes camp was closed in 1942, the town hall said.
When he was just 12 years old, Schwam was cared for by Secours Suisse, a subsector of the Swiss Red Cross that specialized in helping children during the war, where his mother also worked. Schwam enrolled in a pharmacy course at the University of Leon in 1950, graduating in 1957.
The town hall is not sure if he returned regularly to Le Chambon and appeals to more information about the “Viennese Jewish boy”, who was so generous over 75 years later.
“I didn’t know Mr. Schwam, now we’re trying to determine who he was and what happened to him here,” Vallat said.
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