us-005578-irn77697-irn77698
type: RecordSet
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: a. Circular bronze medal with an embossed design of a concentration camp with a sun rising through a forest behind a guard tower with barracks and a smokestack. It is enclosed by a gated fence that divides the relief diagonally. The lower section presents symbolic images of camp activities: a skeleton holding a scythe near a railcar; an inverted triangle imposed over barbed wire; arms in striped sleeves clasping hands over a gridworked globe flanked by leaves. The upper border has embossed barbed wire and the lower has 2 banners with engraved French text and a date. The designer's name, Provost, is engraved on the right. The reverse has a tribute in French text with a date. b. Square, dark red, textured leather covered cardboard box and metal hinged lid. The lid has an embossed border and a gold colored, semi-circular metal closure on the front. Riveted to the base front is a movable, gold colored metal C shaped latch that swings up to lock. The exterior base bottom has beveled edges. The padded lid interior has a red satin lining and a strip of satin covers the hinge. The base has a red velvet lining and a circular recess for the medal.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: 1950 January 11
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: fra
has record set type: Item
history: Yvonne Rothschild was born on January 9, 1898, in Paris, France. Her mother, Rose Marguerite Blum, was born in 1874, and her father, Alfred Rothschild, was born in 1864 in Columbus, Georgia, in the United States. She had a sister, Mariette, born in 1903. Her parents had lived in France since the 1910s. Alfred was a businessman and used the name surname Redgis professionally. Yvonne danced with the Paris Opera from the age of fifteen. She left Paris on August 19, 1922, and worked as a ballet teacher, eventually establishing her own school. In 1939, Mariette, her husband, Herbert Fraenkel, and their son, Edward, age 5, emigrated to the US. They Americanized their name to Francell. In May 1940, Germany invaded France, and, in June, France surrendered. Yvonne worked for the Red Cross in Paris until returning that year to her home in the Riviera in the unoccupied zone, governed by the Vichy regime. On October 22, 1940, she married Henry Horace Klug, Jr., an American born in 1893, in Cavalaire-sur-Mer. Yvonne joined the French resistance and was active in destroying German propaganda. She distributed pamphlets and underground newspapers and aided men evading forced labor service to join the Maquis (guerillas), for whom she provided food. Her parents escaped by foot from France in 1942 travelling over the Pyrenees mountains into Spain. They left for the US the same year and began to use the name Redgis. On September 15, 1943, the Gestapo arrested Yvonne and Henry in Paris for their resistance work in southern France. Henri was released for lack of proof, but Yvonne was imprisoned in Toulon, partly as a hostage to keep Henry from resuming his resistance work. This made some suspect that he had turned her in to the German authorities. She was transferred to Drancy transit camp on October 9 and, on December 10, assigned as forced labor at the Austerlitz train station, a Drancy subcamp. Yvonne was returned to Drancy on June 15, 1944. Two weeks later, on June 30, she and thirty…
history: The medal was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2004 by Ed Francell, the nephew of Yvonne Redgis.
identifier: irn77698
is or was included in: us-005578-irn77697
record resource extent: a: Depth: 0.125 inches (0.318 cm) | Diameter: 1.625 inches (4.128 cm) b: Height: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm) | Width: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm) | Depth: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: FNDIRP medal with an engraved relief and presentation box awarded to Yvonne Klug Redgis, to honor her experience as a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Yvonne was a member of the French resistance imprisoned in France and Auschwitz II from 1943-1945. FNDIRP (Federation Nationale des Deportes et Internes, Resistances Deportes) is an association formed in France after the war by those who returned from the camps and those who resisted the German occupiers to honor their service and the memory of those who did not survive. The medal is engraved to Madame Klug and has a relief of a concentration camp. France surrendered to and was occupied by Nazi Germany in June 1940. Yvonne was arrested by the Gestapo for her resistance work on September 1, 1943, in the Riviera and sent to Drancy internment camp in October. Until June 1944, she worked as slave labor at Austerlitz train station in Paris, and then was deported to Auschwitz. She was liberated by the Soviet Army in January 1945, hospitalized and then repatriated to France in June 1945. She emigrated to the US in 1946.
title: FNDIRP engraved commemorative medal with box awarded to a French Jewish survivor