United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Laure Grandmaison was the proprietor of a hostel in Brussels, the Pension Internationale, located on the rue de Pont Neuf 7, in that city. Following the German occupation of Belgium in 1940, she began sheltering Jews, mostly emigres, who were threatened with arrest by the Nazis. When the occupation authorities learned of this, they shut down the pension in 1942. By that time, however, she had married one of the emigres who she had sheltered, Samuel Najman, originally of Chrzanow, Poland. Their daughter, Michèle, was born in 1942. Later in the war, the Najmans also sheltered a young Jewish girl, Marion Adler, who had been left in their care, and whose father returned for her after the war. Laure Grandmaison Najman died in 1974, at her daughter's home in La Roche-en-Ardenne, Belgium, and Samuel Najman died in 1986.
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Contains seven documents relating to Laure Grandmaison Najman's work to hide Jews in her guest house in Brussels, Belgium, during World War II. Included are three requests to Laure Grandmaison from internees at Kaserne Dossin (Malines), who she had previously sheltered at her hostel, asking her to send foodstuffs and clothing to them in the camp, 1942-1943. Also included is a receipt from the"Aide aux Israelites Victims de la Guerre, Sectino Enfance" 1946, showing the receipt of payment of 500 francs for the housing of Marion Adler in the month of March-April 1946; and an oath signed by Laure Najman, 1958, in the compensation case of Arnold Brucker, testifying to his experiences in Belgium during the German occupation, when Najman (Grandmaison) maintained a hostel that sheltered several Jews; as well as two original pages from the guest register at Najman's pension in Brussels, showing the names of Jewish guests, including Najman's future husband, Samuel.
Laure Grandmaison Najman collection