Frida Wattenberg was a true heroine of the kind rarely seen today, serving in the Jewish resistance in Nazi-occupied France as a teenager. She passed away on April 3 after contracting COVID-19.

Wattenberg was an active member of youth groups as a child, and when she was recruited to fight the Nazis to save lives, she didn’t hesitate to step up.

In 1942, she saved her mother’s life by obtaining documents to extract her from the Vel d’Hiv velodrome, where as many as 10,000 Jews had been rounded up to eventually be taken to extermination camps. A year later, she joined an effort to accompany Jewish children across the border, risking her own life to smuggle them into neutral Switzerland.

After the war, Wattenberg joined a community organization that cared for Jewish orphans and aided in missions facilitating covert immigration into British Mandate Palestine.

The Memorial for the Shoah paid tribute to Wattenberg after her passing, remembering her as a “courageous woman and an indefatigable fighter.”

She is survived by two children, Amnon and Anita.

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