María Edwards

María Errázuriz by William Orpen, 1915

María Edwards McClure (December 11, 1893 – June 8, 1972) (also known as María Edwards de Errázuriz or María Errázuriz – her original married names) was a Chilean woman who was honored in November 2005 at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial (the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority) as one of the "Righteous Among The Nations," for her participation during the Holocaust in helping to save Jewish children in France. Her actions were not limited to saving Jews but she also actively helped the French resistance.

María Edwards was born in Santiago, the daughter of Agustín Edwards Ross and of María Luisa McClure Ossandón. While still quite young, she married Guillermo Errázuriz Vergara, and they moved to Paris, where he was to take up his diplomatic post. Errázuriz killed himself in 1922, leaving her a widow. After his death, she decided to remain in France.

During the German occupation of Paris, she worked as a volunteer nurse at the Hôpital Rothschild. While working there, she joined the French Resistance, and helped, many times by risking her own life, to rescue Jewish children who had been separated from their parents and were sentenced to be sent to the concentration camps to be eliminated.[1] She was arrested, interrogated and tortured several times by the Gestapo, but was able to escape death thanks to her background and diplomatic relations.

On September 2, 1953, María Edwards was awarded the Legion d'Honneur for bravery in France. In the 1960s, she married her second husband, the French writer Jacques Feydeau, and they moved permanently back to Chile, where both eventually died.

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Notes

  1. ↑ Entregarán condecoración a chilena que salvó a niños judíos en París (Spanish) Reshet Magazine retrieved June 21, 2008

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