Georges Loinger, who saved hundreds of Jewish children during the Second World War, has died at the age of 108.
Loinger was born in Strasbourg in 1910 and became a member of the French Resistance during the war.
He was serving with the French army in 1940 when he was taken prisoner by the Germans and sent to a prisoner of war camp.
Because the talented athlete had blond hair and blue eyes, the Germans did not suspect he was Jewish and he managed to escape the camp and return to France.
He then joined the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), a Jewish children’s aid society.
Between April 1943 and June 1944, members of the group helped many hundreds of Jewish children escape to Switzerland via its lightly guarded border with France.
Loinger told Tablet magazine in an interview earlier this year: “I threw a ball a hundred metres towards the Swiss border and told the children to run and get the ball.
“They ran after the ball and this is how they crossed the border.”
There was also another ruse which involved him dressing the children up as mourners and taking them to a cemetery near the border.
Loinger arranged Jean Deffaugt, the mayor of a French border town, to house the children until it was time for them to go.
He also paid professional guides to help the children across the border.
Loinger was responsible for saving at least 350 children, many of whom had lost their parents to Nazi concentration camps.
They were among 75,000 Jews, including children, who were deported from German-occupied France, in most cases with the cooperation of the French authorities.
He was awarded the Resistance Medal, the Military Cross and the Legion d’Honneur among a number of other awards for his heroism.
