Madeleine Michelis

Madeleine Michelis (22 August 1913 – 15 or 16 February 1944) was a French teacher and a member of the French Resistance during the Second World War.

Early life Michelis was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine; her father was an Italian cobbler and her mother, a governess, was from Alsace, her parents having left the region in the 1870s in order to retain French nationality. Her brother, Jean, was four years her junior. She was educated first at the local girls' school, then at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris and finally at the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles at Sèvres. She was a member of the Jeunesse Étudiante Chrétienne, a Christian youth organisation.

Wartime activities Her first teaching post was at the Lycée de jeunes filles at le Havre, but she was forced to leave in 1940 because of the bombing. She was transferred to the Lycée Victor Duruy in Paris, and subsequently to the Lycée d’État de Jeunes Filles d'Amiens, later renamed the Lycée Madeleine Michelis d'Amiens in her honour. In 1942, she gave shelter to a Jewish girl, Claude Dalsace, whose father had been deported; Michelis managed to get her to safety in the "zone libre".

As a member of the Libération-Nord and the "Shelburn" network, Michelis was involved in the rescue of airmen and escaped prisoners who found their way to the countryside of Picardy. It was for her actions in the period between November 1943 and February 1944 that she was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom by the United States.

The tortures inflicted on her included waterboarding. On 15 February, she told other prisoners that she had been placed in an icy bath and could not warm up afterwards. Some stated that, the next day, she was again taken for interrogation; she was never seen alive again. Yet another version of her death was given by General Charles de Gaulle in her medal citation: that she was strangled by her captors.

Legacy The state of Israel posthumously conferred on her the title of Righteous Among the Nations, on 24 November 1997. A high school in Amiens, France (Lycée Madeleine Michelis) is named after her.