Founder-President of the Musée-mémorial des enfants d'Izieu
(Photo C. Rouland)
Sabine Chwast was born in Warsaw in 1907. She came from a Jewish family. As a young woman, she left her family to reach France where she met and eventually married Miron Zlatin, an agronomy student based in Nancy. After their wedding, the couple ran a poultry farm in the town of Landas, in the North of France. In 1939, they became French citizens.
When war broke out, Sabine Zlatin registered to train with the Red Cross as a military nurse. Faced with the German army's advance, the couple decided to move to Montpellier. There, Sabine Zlatin was posted to a military hospital from which she was forced to leave in 1941, due to racist laws issued by the Vichy government.
At the prefecture of Hérault, she was advised to get in contact with the Oeuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE), a Jewish children aid association. She organized the rescuing of children who were internees in the camps of Agde and Rivesaltes. A number of children were released through her care.
In 1943, with the German occupation of the French zone, the Zlatin, bringing with them seventeen children, sought refuge in the Italian zone. They were given a recommendation for the sub-prefect of Belley, who put a house at their disposal in Izieu. There, the couple founded the Hérault refugee children's home.
On April 6th, 1944, the forty-four children who were being sheltered in the Izieu children's home and the seven adults in charge of them were arrested by the Lyon Gestapo, under the command of Klaus Barbie. They were arrested because they were Jewish. Out of all the people there that day, only one person escaped. Forty-two children and five adults were gassed in the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Two teenagers and Miron Zlatin, the superintendent of the home, were put to death by firing squad at Reval, in Estonia. There was one sole survivor.
In 1987, Klaus Barbie was found guilty of this crime against humanity. Soon after his trial, the Association du Musée-mémorial des enfants d'Izieu formed around Madame Zlatin and Prefect Wiltzer. Founder members from all backgrounds resolved to purchase the house which sheltered the Izieu children's home and turn it into a museum about these Jewish children and about crime against humanity.
