Andrée Geulen and Ida Sterno: Angels of Mercy

By Linda Harris Sittig

As we start another year and a worldwide wish for peace, I want to share with you the story of two remarkable, strong women: Andrée Geulen and Ida Sterno.

Their story starts in 1942 in Brussels, Belgium, with the Nazi military occupation in its second year. All Jews must wear a yellow Star of David on their coats, jackets, sweaters, etc., for instant recognition.

Andrée teaches in a private boarding school that also takes in day students. When the children enter the classroom, she suggests everyone remove their outer garments and put them in the coat closet. Then she has everyone don an apron. After the children comply and take their seats, it is hard to distinguish the Jewish children from the non-Jewish ones.

Under the watchful eye of the sympathetic headmistress Odile Ovart, Andrée is taken aside and introduced to a fellow teacher and Jewish activist named Ida Sterno. Madame Ovart explains that Ida works with a Belgian resistance group, the Committee for the Defense of Jews. This organization locates Jewish children in danger of deportation and transports them into hiding. The school itself is a safe harbor for twelve Jewish students. Madame Ovart then explains how Andrée, a non-Jew, can help.

Just a few months later, the boarding school is raided by the Gestapo. The twelve Jewish children are deported, and both Odile and her husband, Remy, are arrested. The Ovarts will later die in a concentration camp.

Andrée and Ida are now a team working with several other women of the CDJ. Their primary mission is to find safe harbors where Jewish children can be relocated. They quickly discover that the most emotional part of their job is to convince Jewish parents that their children would be safer living in a Catholic convent or on a rural farm with a surrogate family.

No parent wants to be parted from their children. When those parents beg to be given the address of where their children will be, Andrée and Ida have to stipulate that doing so would only compromise the safety of the children.

On several occasions, Andrée and Ida just missed being detected by Nazi soldiers. But because Andrée looks Aryan, the soldiers assume she is taking children on an outing when she is really chaperoning a group on their way to relocation.

Andrée and Ida maintain a complicated series of five separate notebooks that list each child in hiding by a code. Their real name, their new name, their actual address, their hidden address, and the names of their parents are all embedded in the code.

Ida Sterno was Jewish, and eventually, the Nazis were tipped off, and Ida was arrested. She was taken to a prison-like facility and tortured for four months, but she never gave up one child’s name or her compatriots in the CDJ.

Ida was finally freed when the Allies liberated Belgium, but the months of torture left her health compromised, and she died in 1964 at the age of 62.

Andrée lived to the age of 100, having died recently in 2022. In 1989, she was recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center as ‘righteous among the nations’ for her heroic efforts. 

At the end of WWII, when the Allies liberated Europe, almost 3,000 Belgian Jewish children had safely survived the Holocaust, thanks to the efforts of the CDJ. Some children were reunited with extended family members, and others were adopted by their surrogate families. Sadly, many parents perished in the concentration camps.

But both Ida and Andrée reconnected through the years with many of the children they had rescued.                  

This story gives me hope that even in the face of pure evil, there are those human souls whose compassion transcends the political turmoil of the time.

Thank you to Rebecca Connolly, whose upcoming book, Hidden Yellow Stars, tipped me off to the story of Andrée and Ida. Shadow Mountain Publishing is publishing Hidden Yellow Stars and the book will be available in stores and online in early March.

If you enjoyed this month’s Strong Woman blog, please sign up on the right sidebar to become a follower. Once a month, you will receive a new story about a woman who should have become more famous.

I wish everyone peace, prosperity, and good health in the new year, and remember that even one person’s efforts can help to change history.

~ Linda

www.lindasittig.com

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