The Spanish Priests Who Saved French Jews
“In 2008, a woman came to the door saying: ‘I come to thank you. You saved my parents’ lives.’ Nobody knew what she was referring to and we took her to Father Miguel Ángel Chueca, our superior,” Father Carlos Tobes Arrabal, the director of the Spanish Catholic Mission in Paris, told a Spanish reporter earlier this summer.
The woman told a fanciful tale of how the Claretian missionaries falsified baptism records that permitted her parents to flee the Nazis after Hitler invaded France. Father Miguel Ángel Chueca listened to the woman, thanked her for her gratitude, and saw her off. He then spoke to the other Claretians. He told them, in vague terms, what she told him. Then he asked the men to remain silent about the matter.
“I think it was a story that the order has lived in private,” Tobes Arrabal, said. Ten years later, there was another knock on the door.
This time, there would be no vows of silence.
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Eighty years after they risked their lives to save others, the heroism of four Spanish Catholic priests who saved Jews during the Nazi occupation of France has come to light. The Claretians, in Paris on May 1940 when Hitler invaded France, falsified baptism and marriage documents to help Jews escape France and the Holocaust.
Joaquín Aller, Emilio Martín, Ignacio Turrillas, and Gilberto Valtierra, members of the Claretian missionary church in Paris, falsified baptism and marriage certificates to save 155 Jews. Their forgeries certified the Jews as Christians, preventing their being arrested by the Vichy France government. Armed with falsified records, the Jewish families were able to flee France or, if questioned by Nazi officials in Paris, could claim to be Catholics. This campaign to save Jews was carried out in secrecy; the four Catholic priests risked arrest had the Vichy France government discovered their activities.
The four Spanish Catholic missionaries kept their work secret, each man vowing complete silence. That we are now learning of their heroism is accidental. “For my doctoral thesis I was researching [in 2018] the work of Spanish diplomacy during the Holocaust in the archives of the consulate [in Paris] and conducting interviews with survivors and relatives of victims of the Nazi extermination,” Santiago López Rodríguez, told reporter Julio Núñez. “While having a coffee with Alain de Toledo, the son of a deportee from the Royallieu-Compiègne camp, he told me that his parents’ baptism certificates had been forged in a Spanish church in Paris to help them flee to Spain.”
López Rodríguez is now a professor at the University of Extremadura; Núñez, a reporter, surprised the Spanish speaking world when El País published his report on August 7, 2020.
The conversation López Rodríguez had with Alain de Toledo led to a series of inquiries that unraveled this extraordinary story.
López Rodríguez first went to the Spanish Catholic Mission, located in central Paris, still run by the Claretian missionaries. Anthony Mary Claret founded the Claretian community, or, formally, the Congregation of Missionaries, Sons of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in 1849.[1] Today, they have a presence in 65 countries and approximately 3,000 members. The Claretian’s Mission in Paris is known as the Mission Catholique Espagnole.
When López Rodríguez visited the Spanish Catholic Mission, still located on Rue de la Pompe, he met with the Carlos Tobes Arrabal, the current director. He inquired about the possibility that the Claretians had been involved in an effort to help Jews escape the Vichy France government. Was it truly possible that baptism records had been falsified to save Jews? Tobes Arrabal said he had no knowledge of any effort to falsify baptism records during between 1940 and 1944, during the Nazi occupation of France.
López Rodríguez said he wanted to examine the Mission’s archives. Tobes Arrabal agreed, intrigued by the possibility that the woman who had visited the Mission in 2008 was right. This time around, Tobes Arrabal was in charge and he wanted to find out what his predecessors had done back in the 1940s.
Tobes Arrabal escorted López Rodríguez down the corridor that led to where the Claretians kept their records and archives. What the men together discovered astounded them. They found scores of baptism records for scores of people who had Sephardic Jewish names, each annotated in blue and black ink, written in elegant and precise penmanship by different Claretians.
“It is clearly seen how in that period of time [1940–1944] the baptisms grew by as much as 200% in this parish. Entire families were converted on the same day, in some instances, even the marriage certificates were also falsified at the same time [for a total of 22],” an incredulous López Rodríguez told Núñez. “There were a total of 155 forgeries between October 3, 1940 and July 12, 1944.”[2]
That the Claretians were aware of the deteriorating situation Jews faced in France is clear. On July 16, 1940 the Vichy France government had passed the denaturalization law, effectively revoking the citizenships of thousands of French Jews who had emigrated to France and been naturalized as citizens in due course. As summer became fall, the four Spanish Catholic missionaries agreed to falsify baptism records in order to save Jews facing Nazi persecution. Their conspiracy went into action three months after the first Statutes of the Jews came into force.
On October 3, 1940, Father Valtierra baptized the Modiano family. Mauricio Modiano, 65; his wife, Eda María, 51; their son, René, 20; and a niece, María Francisca Hasson, 9 were given baptism certificates. This is the same day that Marshal Philippe Pétain signed into law the requirement for a census of all Jews in France. This information became the basis for rounding up Jews throughout France months later. Most arrested Jews were sent to the Drancy internment camp before being deported to Nazi concentration camps. The Modiano family, with the exception of María Francisca, had been born in Thessaloniki, Greece; it is not clear if their French citizenship had been revoked when they availed themselves to the Claretians.
The following day, on October 4, 1940, the Vichy France government approved the law on Foreign Nationals of Jewish Race, or Loi relative aux ressortissants étrangers de race juive. This law allowed for the immediate arrest and internment of foreign Jews in France. A month later, French Jews were excluded from serving in the military; working for the press; terminated from the civil service; and were ordered to suspend all commercial and industrial activities. The following year the second status law was passed in July. This law tightened the noose on French Jews: Jews were ordered to register their businesses with the Vichy France government and they were excluded from all commercial or industrial activities. In essence, it was almost impossible for a French Jew to earn a living.
“These forgeries served to appear to be Catholic and, with it, have the possibility of deceiving the persecutors,” says López Rodríguez says.
The Claretians knew that their forged baptisms could be used to secure exit visas to Spain. To enhance the deception, they “baptized” the Jews they assisted with Spanish names. “Thus, Levy became Luis, Jacobo became Jaime, and Moisés became Mauricio,” Núñez reported.
Between October and December 1940, the Claretians “baptized” only four Jewish families. It’s not clear if the men had misgiving about what they were doing — or whether they were assessing how best to do it. Each baptism had to be reported to the Archbishop of Paris, Emmanuel Suhard, and it was not clear the Claretians could not inform him that they were forging ecclesiastical documents. They had to come up with a way of doing so in a circumspect manner.
They figured it out. The following year, in 1941, they “baptized” 68 Jewish families. “These priests were not only breaking ecclesiastical law by making false conversions, but they were taking on the [Vichy France government]. If this had been discovered, it could have meant, without a doubt, their expulsion from France and a great detriment to Spanish diplomacy,” López Rodríguez pointed out. The falsification of documents, such as National Identification cards; visas and passports; birth, baptism, and marriage certificates were serious crimes. The culprits were imprisoned; the beneficiaries were deported to concentration camps. The Claretians knew they were incurring tremendous personal risks.
The Spanish Catholics persisted, nonetheless. An examination of the records indicates the average age of the Jews they helped was 33; the youngest was a few months old, and the oldest was 75 years. Most were Sephardic Jews, French citizens who had been born abroad, the majority in Thessaloniki (Greece) and Istanbul (Turkey).
In 1940, the Claretians at the Paris Mission were no more than 20 men. When the Nazis invaded France on May 10, 1940, there were 16 Claretians at the Spanish Catholic Mission. Father Joaquín Aller, one of the conspirators, was the director at that time. Emilio Martín, Ignacio Turrillas, and Gilberto Valtierra were under his charge. The Claretians, for reasons that are not known, decided to break ecclesiastical law and forge baptism records to help French Jews pass as Catholics and escape Nazi persecution. It is not known if the other missionaries were aware of these men’s clandestine activities.
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It is a mistake to think that the world abandoned Europe’s Jews during the Holocaust. The world was made aware, primarily by diplomatic cables expressing horror, of what was going on. There were those that tried to help as best they could. In France, for example, the work of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portugal’s consul-general in Bordeaux, is well known. The Portuguese diplomat issued visas that allowed thousands to flee the Nazis. Mexican diplomats were active in issuing exit visas to those persecuted. After the Nazi’s occupied France, Mexico moved its embassy from Paris to Marseilles. Mexican acting ambassador, Gilberto Bosques, issued thousands of visas to people fleeing persecution. His humanitarian effort was so ambitious that Mexico abandoned its facilities in downtown Marseilles — in the same building where the Gestapo had its offices — and rented La Reynarde Castle to process visa applications — and house refugees in tents on the castle’s ample grounds.[3] Beyond France’s borders, others worked to save the persecuted. Chiune Sugihara, Japan’s vice-consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, for instance, issued exit visas to more than 6,000 Jews who were escaping the Holocaust. Even private parties became involved, including royalty. Princess Alice of Battenberg, mother of Prince Philip, in Athens during the war, hid Jews from the Nazis after the occupation of Greece began.[4] Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, who became Pope John XXIII on October 28, 1958, forged baptism records during the Holocause to save thousands of Jews from Budapest to Istanbul during the war.[5]
Other Spaniards in Paris outside the Mission Catholique Espagnole were aware of what the Claretians were doing. In an email interview with Julio Núñez, Alain de Toledo, the son of a deportee from the Royallieu-Compiègne camp, wrote: “A cousin of my mother, Enrique Saporta y Beja, knew the consul very well. He had lent him an office in the consulate to help the Sephardim. He told me that Rolland was the one who advised these Jews to go see the priests [to falsify the documents].”
De Toledo refers to Bernardo Rolland de Miota, Spain’s consul-general in Paris during the Vichy France government. It has been documented that Rolland de Miota secretly saved 80 Jews on his own. He sent other dozens to the Spanish Catholic Mission on Rue de la Pompe go “get their papers” from the priests. These ecclesiastical documents, of course, did not guarantee escape from the Nazis. They, however, facilitated securing exit visas and crossing borders — and it exempted from the census the Vichy France government that was later used to arrest and deport Jews.
Rolland de Miota provided detailed reports to Madrid on the situation in occupied France. In 2016 Matilde Morcillo Rosillo published a book that includes all Rolland de Miota’s diplomatic correspondence he sent to Madrid.[6] His passionate defense of the Jewish people is a record of the anguished limitations of diplomacy in a time when crimes against humanity were unfolding across Europe. Officials in Madrid, under the direction of Francisco Franco, self-proclaimed Caudillo of Spain, or dictator, attempted to reign Rolland de Miota’s activities. Franco’s officials accused Rolland de Miota of “protecting the Jews too much.” He protested that characterization; he was dismissed as head of the Spanish Consulate General in Paris.
If Madrid became aware of the effort to help French Jews by their diplomats in Paris, the French also noticed the frenzied activity of the four Claretians. The frequency of adult baptisms the Claretians were performing surprised Emmanuel Suhard, Archibishop of Paris. The French ecclesiastical hierarchy, of course, had an idea what the Spanish Catholic priests in their midst were doing, but they were also aware that the Gestapo was monitoring the Archbishop’s office. In a letter dated February 12, 1942 that López Rodríguez discovered, Archbishop Shuhard demanded of Father Joaquín Aller: “I told you, the last time I saw you, that the Archbishop’s Council needed an explanation about another Israeli convert whose documentation has not reached us. It is about Miss (Mme.) Saporta [and Beja], who would have been baptized and briefly married in the Spanish chapel. I would appreciate it if you would come to see me on Saturday morning, February 14 at 10 o’clock, and give me any documentation you have gathered.”
Archbishop Suhard opposed the Vichy France government and spoke out against the deportations. This is why he was circumspect in how he expressed himself in written communication with the Claretians. The letter, in other words, implored the Claretians to be prudent about their forgeries; other priests throughout France were also engaged in falsifying documents to save the persecuted.
Gilberto Valtierra, Joaquín Aller, Emilio Martín, and Ignacio Turrillas kept their own counsel without anyone other than those they saved knowing that they were doing — and their co-conspirators, Rolland de Miota and Suhard. Now eight decades later, it is difficult to flesh out portraits of who these brave men were in life. Not much is known about any of these four priests. Joaquín Aller was born in Campo de Villavidel in 1897. Emilio Martín, one of the founding fathers of the Claretian mission in Paris, was born in Segovia in 1869. Ignacio Turrillas was born in Monreal in 1897. Gilberto Valtierra was born in San Martín de Humada in 1889. One by one the men took this secrets to his grave: Emilio Martín died in 1951; Gilberto Valtierra died in 1953; Ignacio Joaquín Aller died in 1964; and Turrillas died in 1979.
The current director of the Mission Catholique Espagnole, Father Carlos Tobes Arrabal, only knew Turrillas, for whom he looked after in his old age. “He was the one who was left alive of the four and he died in my arms in 1979,” he told López Rodríguez. “He never told me about this.”
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This account, of course, is the first draft of this previously unknown chapter in the Nazi occupation of France in 1940. If you are a relative, or know someone who is, of any of the people the Claretians saved, please contact this author or reporters at El País. Their email is elpaissemanal@elpais.es. The Claretian Missionaries can be reached at Claret.org.
Following are the people whose baptismal records the Claretians falsified to help them escape:
Name, Birthdate
Mauricio Modiano, 12 April 1875
Eda María Modiano, 26 July 1889
René Modiano, 13 August 1910
María Francisa Hasson Modiano, 24 April 1931
Raúl Scialom Rothschild, 17 July 1901
Martine Elise Scialom Chaillet, 28 May 1934
Clara Julia Scialom Chaillet, 1 January 1936
Gastón Yaeche Albuquerque, 4 May 1909
Liliane Marie Aboaf Asseo, 2 February 1913
Alain José Yaeche Albuquerque, 9 December 1936
Víctor Gormezano Cami, 22 August 1901
Salónica Barzilai Berta, Not listed
Colette Gormezano, 4 October 1931
Jaime Hassid Hassid, 1881
Juan Vainfeld User, 11 October 1880
José Alberto Sevitt, 17 August 1895
Nicole Salange (o Solange) Rubinstein, 21 January 1928
Ernesto Leopoldo Marcel Mirish, 19 September 1904
Jaime Saporta, 27 September 1887
Jimena (Simone) Nahmías, 8 February 1880
Marcelo Saporta, 20 March 1923
Raimundo Saporta, 16 December 1926
Roger Michel Rubenstein, 23 July 1904
Mauricio Benarrosch, 5 February 1899
Claudio Elías Miguel Benarrosch, 10 March 1933
Andrés Faraggi, 26 October 1912
Santiago Jacob Pérez, 2 November 1939
Teresa Zimbal Ojalvo, 14 March 1909
Pablo Cazes Yacoel, 2 February 1886
Luciano Faraggi, 2 March 1887
Edith María Esther Nahmías, 13 October 1892
Rogelio Faraggi, 8 November 1919
José Mauricio Carasso (Carazo) Ascer, 15 May 1905
María Avenila Navarro Rafael, 31 December 1910
Enrique Salvator Sevi, 19 April 1901
Jacques De Abravanel, 13 December 1918
Yves Fe Abravanel, 26 February 1920
Edgardo Hassid Fernández, 4 January 1890
Santiago Botton Faraggi, 25 November 1867 or 1897
Juan Colonomos Hallevis, 19 May 1928
Pedro María Colonomos Ergas, 13 July 1900
Rafael Molho Ángel, 3 March 1882
Raquel María Hassid Capuano, 12 February 1896
Alberto Nahum Carasso, 29 August 1903
Victoria Nalevanski Kboudey, 4 February 1909
Jaime Alain Nahum Nalevanski, 9 February 1938
Matilde Magdalena Gattegno Faraggi, 3 August 1904
Enrique Alberto Saporta y Beja, 10 May 1898
Nicolás María Alberto Saporta y Beja, 31 August 1896
María Fernanda Odeta Nahum (Nahon) Carcassona, 6 November 1893
Elías Pedro Hassid Fernández, 21 December 1896
Lidia Marta Assael Covo (Cobo), 17 August 1903
Ihno (Ino) Abravanel y Mano, 3 April 1898
Jony Salomón De Abravanel, 23 January 1904
Benjamín Sol Abravanel, 26 February 1907
Jaime De Abravanel, 16 March 1915
Corine De Abravanel, 10 January 1907
Alberto Sevi, 28 November 1899
Matilde Alfandary, 20 September 1906
Claudio Sevi, 12 May 1929
Jacqueline Sevi, 12 November 1935
Myriam María Piper Wolinsky, 24 March 1927
Mauricio Papo, 6 February 1928
Juan Claudio Hassid Assael, 13 November 1940
Rosa Eliana Hassid Assael, 17 August 1929
Germana Wimphen, 16 November 1892
Juan Claudio Oppenheimer, 22 September 1927
Micael Benarroch, 23 July 1941
Gerardo Oppenheimer, 17 June 1929
Santiago Benveniste Halfon, 2 June 1923
Ángela Mitrani, 8 April 1911
Francisco Rabinovi Kogon, 9 August 1930
Maurice Habib, 14 October 1888
Jean Habib, 16 March 1920
Enrique Constantino Sciaky Sciaky, 5 June 1926
José Alberto Ades Strugo, 4 December 1884
Joaquín Vidal Corris Franco, 2 November 1900
Juan Francés Roberto, 4 December 1900
Juan Luis David Bertrand Rousseau, 8 January 1922
Elías Santiago Nahmías y Cazes, 1 March 1908
Inés Segui, 26 May 1919
Benjamín Andrés Nefoussi, 30 November 1894
Marcela Franés, 10 August 1897
Coleta (Colette) Nefoussi Francés, 8 July 1927
Clara Ana Kruglikoff (María), 7 January 1900
Luis Franco y Menasche, 19 December 1878
Cristina Strugo y Rousso, 16 August 1885
Enrique Franco y Strugo, 27 12 1911
Daniela Antonia Blumenzweig, 25 February 1929
María Micheline Naar y Pérez, 7 April 1937
María del Pilar Alegría Ruiz del Río, 7 May 1942
Alberto De Mayo, 2 February 1882
María Sara Arditti, 14 February 1882
Rafael Benveniste, 21 March 1894
Julia Halfon Benveniste, 23 September 1903
Margarita Arditti Strounza, 2 Septembre 1911
Benjamín Stroumza, 17 December 1907
Roger Pérez, 13 January 1933
Eliana Pérez, 16 December 1936
Mario José Benveniste Aron (Amon), 5 January 1912
Andrea Genevière Saporta, 28 November 1919
Mónica Juanita María Beneviste Saporta, 10 January 1941
Darío Juan Saporta y Magrizo, 17 September 1893
Olga María Hassid de Saporta, 17 September 1893
Enrique Saporta y Hassid, 19 June 1922
Alberto Ascher y Benveniste, 29 December 1921
Rolanda Bloch Normann, 26 December 1922
Lucía Amón de León, 11 April 1901
René García Apoinar, 23 July 1921
Lilian García Teresa, 12 November 1925
Roberto García Andrés, 30 November 1926
Jeanne Jonnat Brumm, 13 October 1914
Pablo Enrique Moulia y Tiano, 8 July 1881
María Lucía Botton, 25 April 1894
Jacobo Benveniste, 19 October 1871
Isaac Ascher, 3 February 1884
Sol Benveniste, 26 August 1898
María Ascher Benveniste, 26 August 1898
Elisa Luis Saltiel, 22 February 1909
Daniella Lolita Mitrani, 4 March 1943
Daniel David Benadón, 16 August 1909
Gilberto Hugo Benadón, 20 January 1911
Pablo Benadón, 7 July 1873
María Delicia Saltiel, 7 July 1873
Raúl Juan Benosiglio, 8 May 1914
Daisy Daniela Benosiglio, 2 June 1912
Nina Cristina Benosiglio, 14 March 1917
José Raúl Moulia Ovadía, 14 October 1918
María Lina Papo Behar de Moulia, 1 December 1894
Edith Lucienne Guilmart, 2 April 1934
Jean Robert Sam Sciaky Simha, 17 February 1905
Enrique De Toledo Givre Nissim, 1 January 1904
Flora Lucía Matilde Abastado Modiano, 22 November 1911
Andrés Isaac Joseph Gormezano, 31 December 1903
María Rebeca Nissim Henriette, 12 December 1913
Francisca Renata Scialom Chaillet, 22 May 1943
Eliezer Luis Carasso, 15 December 1880
Matilde María Carasso Amaio, 15 September 1887
Cristina Carasso Alegra, 22 July 1917
Elisa Scialom Naar, 25 September 1876
Alberto Avigdor, 10 December 1910
Victoire Rose Galimidi, 5 January 1902
Salvador Daniel Eliakim Roditi, 6 April 1919
David Andrés Cohen, 14 February 1901
Genoveva Blanca Levy, 22 December 1918
Paula Cristiana Levy, 5 May 1910
Juanita Cristina Bovétés, 26 March 1932
Lilian Teresita Bovétés, 15 November 1933
Alejandra Bersky Meckel, 22 March 1899
Arnold Meckel, 1 January 1925
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[1] The Claretians are formally known as the Congregatio Missionariorum Filiorum Immaculati Cordis Beatae Mariae Virginis; abbreviation C.M.F. for Cordis Mariae Filii.
[2] The breakdown by year follows: 4 in 1940, 68 in 1941, 30 in 1942, 45 in 1943 and, 8 in 1944, when Nazi occupation ended.
[3] The Mexican government leased ships to evacuate refugees from Marseilles to Casablanca where they transferred for ships to Veracruz, Mexico.
[4] “I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with a deep religious faith, and she would have considered it to be a perfectly natural human reaction to fellow beings in distress,” Prince Philip said of his mother’s heroism.
[5] ”Operation Baptism” entailed distributing baptismal certificates to Jews, mostly children, who were Nazi officials accepted as Catholics, and allowed them passage. In this way, thousands of Jews from Hungary, Romania, and Turkey were spared.
[6] See, Matilde Morcillo Rosillos’ El Cónsul General Bernardo Rolland de Miota y los sefardíes de París durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
