The Fate of Others; Rescuing Jewish Children on the French-Swiss Border

The smuggling of Jewish children from France into Switzerland in 1943-44 is a little-known chapter of Shoah history. It was pioneered, in late 1942, by the child rescue organization known as OSE (Œuvre de secours aux enfants). In the summer of 1943, as the Nazi terror intensified, Jewish leaders called upon a young, Jewish woman named Mila Racine to establish a second smuggling network. Despite the extreme danger involved, she answered the call. Mila Racine and her small team identified themselves with the MJS (Mouvement de jeunesse sioniste). Aided by Catholics and Protestants, they smuggled 274 people – mostly unaccompanied children – across the border. Meticulously research and written, Le Sort des autres explains how and why this humanitarian resistance operation came about. It also presents detailed information on each of the 24 groups that Mila Racine and her team passed into Switzerland, citing date, time, and place of the border crossing as well as key data on each person in the group. It was at the border that Mila Racine met her own tragic fate, falling into Nazi hands. The book faithfully chronicles the many months she survived the horrendous conditions of Ravensbrück and Mauthausen and her tragic death, beneath American bombs, shortly before the war’s end.