Anne Beaumanoir

Anne Beaumanoir (30 October 1923 – 4 March 2022) was a French neurophysiologist. For her aid to Jews in Brittany during the Second World War, she as well as her parents were recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. A militant communist who was involved with the French Resistance during the Second World War, she was imprisoned for supporting the FLN in the Algerian War.

Biography Early life Beaumanoir was born in Brittany on 30 October 1923, in Guildo, a commune in the Arrondissement of Dinan in the Côtes-du-Nord department, the daughter of restaurateurs Jean and Marthe Beaumanoir.

Second World War During the Second World War, Beaumanoir was a medical student and a clandestine militant member of the French Communist Party (PCF). Her parents regularly sent food parcels to her through friends. One day in June 1944, these friends informed her that there would be a raid the following night in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, and asked her to warn a woman called Victoria, who was hiding a Jewish family. Although she knew that the PCF frowned on unauthorised rescue missions, Beaumanoir went to Victoria's apartment to warn her. She was introduced to the Lisopravski family, and its two youngest members, the son, Daniel, aged 16, and the daughter, Simone, aged 14, agreed to go with her. Beaumanoir was initially kept in solitary confinement but was then tasked with teaching fellow prisoners how to read and write, and writing letters for them. Because she was pregnant, she was provisionally released after serving eight months in order to give birth. After the birth of her son, she escaped to Tunisia, where she joined the FLN, serving as a neuropsychiatrist under Frantz Fanon.

Recognition Beaumanoir was recognised as one of the Righteous Among the Nations on 27 August 1996 by Yad Vashem, along with her parents. In 2016, investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Denis Robert and his daughter Nina Robert co-produced a documentary on Beaumanoir's life titled Une vie d'Annette. In 2020 the German author Anne Weber published Annette, ein Heldinnenepos, an epic poem based on Beaumanoir's life, which won the German Book Prize for 2020.