Adelaide Hautval

Following the fall of France to German forces in June 1940, the northern and western part of the country was under German military occupation, while the collaborationist Vichy regime—officially the French State (État français)—governed the southern, unoccupied "Free Zone." The two zones were separated by a demarcation line. Papers authorizing individuals to cross from one zone into the other were very difficult to obtain; and Jews were strictly prohibited from crossing the demarcation line.

Persecution of so-called “undesirables” by the Vichy government began almost immediately. Foreign-born Jews were stripped of citizenship, and racial laws targeting Jews in particular were enacted. Jews and other “undesirables” were sent to internment camps beginning in October 1940; these camps became transit points when the deportation of Jews “to the East” began in late March 1942.

 In November 1942, in reaction to the Allied landings in North Africa, the Germans occupied the Free Zone, effectively nullifying the demarcation line. 

The Vichy regime ceased to exist in late 1944 when the Allies liberated and occupied all of France.

Hautval was working a clinic in southwestern France when Nazi Germany defeated and occupied France in mid-1940. Her first act of overt defiance of the Nazis came in April 1942, as she attempted to travel without authorization into German-occupied France to visit her mortally ill mother. In the station platform in Bourges, she witnessed German authorities mistreating a Jewish family. Speaking to them in their own language, she told the Germans to leave the Jews in peace. When one of the tormentors asked her, "But don't you see, they're only Jews," she retorted, "So what? They are people like any others, leave them alone." She was arrested and jailed. 

In Auschwitz-Birkenau, after she was denounced for refusing to participate in what she considered unnecessary and inhumane experiments on female Jewish inmates, Chief SS doctor Eduard Wirths asked why; she answered that it was contrary to principles she held as a physician. "Can't you see that these people are different from you?" asked Wirths. "Dr. Wirths," replied Hautval, "there are a great many other people who are different from me, starting with you." Although she expected her response to provoke dire consequences, she was merely transferred to another section of the camp. 

In 1962, Hautval was one of the major witnesses for Jewish-American author Leon Uris in London. In his famous book, Exodus, Uris described the cruel experiments perpetrated by Polish doctor Władysław Dering on prisoners in Auschwitz. Dering, who had moved to London after the war, sued Uris for libel. At Uris’ request, Dr. Hautval came to London to testify. She challenged Dering’s claim that refusing orders in Auschwitz was futile and suicidal; she described how she had, on four separate occasions, refused to participate in the sterilization of women prisoners. Justice Frederick Horace Lawton described Hautval as "a most distinguished person … one of the most impressive and courageous women who had ever given evidence in the courts of this country." Uris, who wrote a fictionalized account of this trial in his book QB VII (which inspired a television mini-series by the same title) said that “if we had had more friends like Dr. Hautval, there could never have been a Nazi era.”

1906 Born on January 1 in Hohwald im Elsass, Germany (now Le Hohwald, Alsace, France), the daughter of a Protestant pastor

1938 After receiving a medical degree in psychiatry from the University of Strasbourg, returns to her home village (at this time part of France) to help manage a home for handicapped childre

1942 Jailed in Bourges; declares her solidarity with Jewish inmates by wearing armband "Amie des juifs" (friend of the Jews)

1943 Deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau

1964 Testifies on behalf of author Leon Uris in the libel trial that grew out of Uris' best-seller Exodus

19635 At ceremony at Yad Vashem in which she received the Medal of the Righteous, states that God, not mere mortals like herself, was worthy of such a honor, adding: "What I did was perfectly natural, logical and derived from a moral obligation."

1991 Publication of Hautval's memoir, Médecine et crimes contre l'Humanité (Medicine and Crimes Against Humanity

“Hautval, Adelaide (1906–1988).” In Women in world history: A biographical encyclopedia. Ed. Anne Commire. Waterford, CT: Yorkin Publications, Gale Group, 1999. /62541793/enc_linkads