A ceremony posthumously honoring Antoine Sala and his daughters Henrietta, Louise and Marie-Paule, along with her husband Giovanni Angeli, from France, as Righteous Among the Nations will take place Thursday at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
The medal and certificate of honor will be presented to Veronique Dorothy, granddaughter of Righteous Among the Nations Marie-Paule and Giovanni Angeli.
She arrived especially from France to attend the ceremony and accept the medal and certificate on her family's behalf.
The ceremony will be attended by Holocaust survivor Henri Dzik, a representative of the French Embassy, Sonia Barbry, as well as family and friends.
The memorial ceremony will be held in the Hall of Remembrance followed by the awarding of the medal and certificate in the Synagogue and the unveiling of the names in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem.
Antoine Sala was a barber who lived with his children in Pau, France. One of his daughters, Marie-Paule, was married and lived near her father with her husband, Giovanni Angeli. In 1942, the two families hid Henri Dzik, a Jewish child from Paris, and protected him until the end of the war.
At the beginning of the war, Henri's father, Maurice volunteered for the French army. When France surrendered, he was released, however he decided not to return to his family in Paris but stayed instead in Pau. Henri and his mother Anna stayed in Paris. On July 16, 1942 during the Vel d'Hiv roundup, Henri spent time in a summer camp for Jewish children in La Varenne, France. Anna managed to escape when the French police arrived and fled Paris together with her sister Esther and one of their neighbors. She was very worried about Henri and asked her sister to help her return to Paris, and the three of them crossed the French demarcation line and were joined by Maurice in the "free zone." They made contact with the Sala family and Henri was sent to them.
The Sala family took care of Henri and treated him as if he were family. He became attached to Marie-Paule's children, especially Yvan who was the same age as him. He spent his days with Giovanni and Marie-Paule, but due to the lack of space in their apartment he went to Antoine's home to sleep at night. Henri quickly got used to his new life. Thanks to the devoted care of his rescuers, Henri managed to live a fairly normal life, protected from danger and fear.
At the end of the war, Maurice Dzik, who had joined the French forces that fought in North Africa, came to collect Henri, and the family returned to Paris. The two families kept in touch for about a year, but over time the connection was lost. The families reconnected recently, after Henri's son discovered Yvan, who remembered his childhood friend Henri from the period of the war.
On August 25, 2013, Yad Vashem recognized Antoine Sala, his daughters Henrietta, Louise and Marie-Paule and her husband Giovanni Angeli, as Righteous Among the Nations.