thumb|Élise Rivet

Élise Rivet (; 19 January 1890 – 30 March 1945), also known as Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie, was a Catholic nun and World War II heroine. Rivet volunteered to go to a gas chamber at Ravensbrück concentration camp in place of a mother.

Early life

Rivet was born in Draria, French Algeria to an Alsatian mother and French naval officer father. After the death of her father in 1910, she moved with her mother to Lyon.

World War II

After the fall of France to Nazi Germany in World War II, she began hiding refugees from the Gestapo and eventually used her convent to store weapons and ammunition for the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (MUR) at the request of Albert Chambonnet. She was 55 years old.

Legacy

In 1961, the government of France honoured her with her portrait on a Heroes of the Resistance postage stamp. A street bearing her name was inaugurated in Brignais near Lyon on 2 December 1979. In 1996, she was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations. In 1997, she was posthumously awarded the Médaille des Justes. In 1999, a lecture hall at the Institut des Sciences de l'Homme in Lyon was named Salle Élise Rivet in her honour. In Neubrandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a nursing home for the elderly was named "Sr. Elisabeth Rivet".

See also

  • Maximilian Kolbe

References

  • French-language biographical article
  • English-language article
  • Article on philatelic representations of Mère Elise