Hubert Conquere de Monbrison Collection

Film Collection | Accession Number: 2011.350.1

Collection Summary: Exquisite original color film documenting a group of refugee girls from the Russian and Spanish civil wars and a group of Jewish boys who came to France on a Kindertransport from Berlin, Germany in July 1939. The film shows the boys, most of whom have been identified, arriving by bus at the chateau in Quincy-sous-Senart near Paris, France. The chateau belonged to Hubert de Monbrison before World War II. He and Princess Irena Paley (a niece of the last Russian czar) used the chateau to house and educate the refugee children. In 1939, de Monbrison was approached by his family’s Jewish physician, who was a member of the board of the OSE rescue organization, and asked whether he would shelter a group of forty German Jewish refugee children. Quincy served as a Jewish children’s home until September 1940 when, following the German occupation of France, the chateau was requisitioned by the German army. The boys were then relocated to other OSE homes and many survived the Holocaust. This film was discovered because one of the boys, Norbert Bikales, who is now in his eighties, notified Archive staff of its existence.
Credit: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Christian de Monbrison

Film Source: Mr. Christian de Monbrison
Date: Event: 1939
Date: Event: 1939 July 04
Date: Event: 1939
: Record last modified: 2022-07-28 22:00:49
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1000060

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