(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Lighting a Memorial (Yahrzeit) Candle for my Great Uncle, Dr. Israel Schaechter, 1876-1949 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-23 Cross-posted to my Substack, The Janovsky Report Today is the anniversary of the death of my great uncle, Dr. Iliazar Israel Schaechter, (above, c. 1930), so I am lighting a Jewish Memorial (Yahrzeit) candle in his memory. He was a hero physician in the First World War, winning the Legion d’Honneur and the Croix de Guerre, France’s highest military honors. But in 1940, he had to run for his life along with his wife, Elly, and Charles Lang, 68, Dr. Schaechter’s live-in patient for thirty years, a great bear of a man afflicted with an unknown mental illness. It was one more in a lifetime of journeys for the doctor, who was the only boy among the eight children of a Constantinople rabbi (below, c. 1887). His seven sisters all emigrated from Turkey to the United States, but Israel made his way to France, where he studied medicine at the University of Nancy, and became a small town doctor in Thiaucourt, a small town just outside of Nancy. Compelled to flee eastern France at the start of the war, he lived relatively peacefully for a few years in a small town in western France, then narrowly escaped deportation through the selfless actions of farmers François and Leontine Naffrechouxs in a remote, even smaller town. He died in France when I was one, but in the late ‘90s, through research including two trips to France, I undertook a project to trace his life and rescue. I wrote an entry here about one chapter in the story, bizarrely involving a Hitler Youth medal. Uncle Israel had no children -- no direct descendants to carry the light of his memory, so one motivation for the project was to become his “spiritual” descendant to keep his rich past from slipping out of memory. Walking in Uncle Israel's footprints changed my life, providing strength in moments of doubt or crisis by thinking about his life, and the kindness and courage of those like the Naffrechouxs, who knew and helped him. In a ceremony in Paris in June 1998, their granddaughter Thérèse Naffrechoux accepted the medal of the Righteous Among Nations, awarded posthumously to her grandparents for their rescue of Dr. Schaechter. In August 2000, we named one of our newborn twin daughters Isabel, in part after Uncle Israel, her spiritual ancestor, whose story still inspires me 23 years later. These days, we need stories of humanity and courage like that of my Great Uncle and the Naffrechouxs. Andrè Naffrechoux (son of Francois and Leontine) and family, 1997: [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/23/2213500/-Lighting-a-Memorial-Yahrzeit-Candle-for-my-Great-Uncle-Dr-Israel-Schaechter-1876-1949?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/