Ukrainian brothers honored for saving French Jews during World War II

Published: 2004-01-14

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- A Ukrainian priest and his brother were posthumously honored by a Holocaust memorial organization for saving hundreds of French Jews from death during World War II. Father Alexandre Glasberg and Vila Glasberg were honored Jan. 12 with the "Righteous Among the Nations" medal from Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel. The brothers were born Jews, but were baptized by their parents in the early 1900s in Ukraine, according to a Yad Vashem statement. They later emigrated to France, where Father Glasberg was ordained a priest in 1938. Following the German occupation of France, Father Glasberg, based in Lyons, helped found the Amite Chretienne relief organization, which provided protection for refugees, the statement said. In the summer of 1942, as the arrests of Jews in southern France began, Father Glasberg was able to funnel hundreds of Jews to safety through his relief network by using forged identity papers. He became wanted by the Gestapo and French police and was forced into hiding in December of that year, taking the alias Father Elie Corvin, and became a parish priest in the rural district of Tarn et Garonne. Vila Glasberg, who had taken the name Victor Vermont, continued rescuing Jews in his brother's absence. On Aug. 16, 1943, Vila Glasberg was arrested by the Gestapo, who had mistaken him for his brother. Vila Glasberg did not correct the mistake in order to save his brother and eventually was murdered by the Nazis, although the details of his death are unknown, Yad Vashem said. Father Glasberg survived in hiding until after the war. He helped facilitate complex operations that enabled Holocaust survivors to reach Palestine, which later became the State of Israel. Among the operations he helped facilitate were the well-known ship Exodus, Yad Vashem said. He also assisted the mass emigration of Jews from Iraq, Morocco and Egypt. Father Glasberg died in France in 1981.

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