An Austrian man who fled the Nazis with his family during World War II, bequeathed much of his fortune to the French village whose inhabitants had been hiding them for years for persecution. Eric Schwam, who died on December 25 at the age of 90, writes the gift of surprise in his will for Chambon-sur-Lignon, located on a remote mountain plateau in the southeast of France, which historically has a large Protestant community known for is for them to provide shelter to the needy.
“This is a large amount for the town,” Mayor Jean-Michel Eyraud told AFP.
He did not want to specify the amount because the will was still sorted out, but his predecessor, who told a local website that she had met twice with Schwam and his wife to discuss the gift, said it was about 2 million euro ($ 2.4 million).
Photo by JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK / AFP via Getty Images
Schwam and his family arrived in 1943 and were hidden in a school during the war. They remained until 1950.
He later studied pharmacy and married a Catholic woman from the region near Lyon, where they lived.
Eyraud said Schwam called for the money to be used for educational and youth initiatives, especially scholarships.
About 2,500 Jews were taken in and protected during World War II by Chambon-sur-Lignon, whose inhabitants were honored by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center as ‘Righteous Among the Nations’.
Over the centuries, the town has fled a wide variety of people fleeing religious or political persecution, from priests who were driven to refuge during the French Revolution to Spanish Republicans during the Civil War of the 1930s, and more recently migrants and refugees. the Middle East and Africa.