Remembering two brave Cork women who saved hundreds from Nazi terror

Ahead of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Monday, it is fitting to recall two Cork women who saved hundreds of people from Nazi terror

On Monday, both Holocaust Memorial Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, we might remember these two Cork women who, between them, saved more than 600 lives. Picture: Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty

On August 11, 1942, Cork aid worker Mary Elmes “spirited away” nine children from the crush of some 400 people who were being herded onto a cattle wagon in southwest France en route to Auschwitz, the Nazi extermination camp that claimed the lives of more than 1.1m people.

She whisked them into her car, covered them with blankets, and drove them into the foothills of the Pyrenees. There, she hid them in the children’s homes she had established to provide temporary respite from the harsh conditions at Rivesaltes detention camp near Perpignan in France. Those places of comfort acted as safe houses.