Published: 30 September 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
MARY ELMES, THE WOMAN known as "the Irish Oskar Schindler, saved more than 200 Jewish children from the Nazi concentration camps - and on Sunday she was honoured in her native Cork with the opening of a A$10m pedestrian bridge.
In 1942, as Nazi Germany began the mass murder of Jewish people at Auschwitz, the Vichy France government made it clear it would no longer allow Jewish children to be exempt from being sent to the concentration camps.
The Corkwoman, who was an aid worker, saved youngsters by ferrying them to safe houses or helping them flee the country. She hid many of the children in the boot of her car and drove them to safety. In 1943 she was arrested and spent six months in a Gestapo-run prison.
She is the only Irish person honoured by Israel as 'Righteous Among the Nations' - the highest honour the Jewish state can bestow.
FULL STORY 'Irish Oskar Schindler' - new A$10m Cork bridge honouring woman who saved hundreds of Jewish children during WWII opens (Independent)
Photo: Patrick Danjou, son of Mary Elmes with a photograph of his mother, Mary at the official opening of the Mary Elmes Bridge in Cork (Brian Lougheed)
