O F CUS

February 2, 2013

Unique women of Claremont

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Marilee Scaff has been donating her time to the Claremont community for 7 decades.

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Monique Saigals journey from the French Resistance to Claremont.

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CHS wrestlers Dina Marron and Clarissa Garcia were always ready to step into the ring.

See the entire FOCUS edition online at claremont-courier.com

FOCUS/Unique Women of Claremont 2013

FOCUS: Unique Women of Claremont

Sugar and spice
by Chris Oakley

Dina Marron and Clarissa Garcia wrestle with the boys

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An activists perspective
Marilee Scaff keeps her eye on local politics

by Beth Hartnett

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A history lesson

by Sarah Torribio

One womans journey from the French Resistance to Claremont

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Claremont women: Past and present, integral to a flourishing town

by Ginger Elliott

ften studying the role of women in frontier towns has been an afterthought. Not so in Claremont. From the very beginning women have been an integral part of the story, through committees, businesses, organizations and elected and appointed office.

From the files of

One young woman looking north through the sagebrush from one of the few buildings in early Claremont wrote: I wept hot tears down my babys neck. From these tears, a commitment to make this wild place more like what they had left behind had developed. One tradition they brought with them was the New England Town Meeting, where men and women had an equal voice and vote, before women could vote in regular state or national elections. It has often been noted that Claremont women began serving in elective office far earlier than others in this valley. Sarah Bixby Smith served on the school board from 1918 until 1926 and our first city councilwoman was elected in 1946, to be followed by

In Judy Wrights book Claremont Women 1887-1950 They Created a Culture she sums it up this way, I often say that the men built the college(s) and the women built the town. Claremont founders included a large number of college-educated womennot the usual pattern in frontier communities. Since Pomona College was the reason for Claremonts existence, faculty members were drawn from eastern and mid-western college towns. Many of the wives of these earliest pioneers were well aware of what they had lost in the civilized places they had left behind.

many councils with a female majority. All of this occurring before women were admitted to the Rotary, Kiwanis or University Clubs. Another reason that the town attracted independent women was that widows were drawn to a town that was dry, where they could raise children away from public drunkenness. Widow Ruth Powell brought her children from San Diego, which was then a sailors town. She opened a dry goods store that later became Powells Hardware. And she

became the first postmaster in our 1930s post office. She was only the first of many women entrepreneurs the Whinery Sisters Blue Diamond Restaurant, Kitty Urbanus first grocery store and the Barrett sisters pharmacy. The citrus packing houses would not have functioned without the Anglo and Mexican American women who sorted and packed the fruit. One of the most influential women in Claremont for many years was Leila Ackerman, director of the Claremont Chamber of Commerce from 1923 until 1944. She worked to bring the message of the City Beautiful movement to Claremont. Her drive to create wellplanned and attractive public buildings and parks has been a hallmark of the town ever since. Womens history is not an afterthought in Claremont. It is part and parcel of what we are and how we got here. In the upcoming century we will need the work of both men and women together to solve civic problems, nurture the arts, educate our children, help the less fortunate and be the stewards of our rich heritage.

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CHS ladies show toughness competing in a male sport

restling is a sport that requires mental strength, physical balance and a constant awareness of the position the opponent has taken. Claremont High Schools team is having an up and down 2012-13 season, but 2 bright spots have been the inclusion of Clarissa Garcia and Dina Marron.

As you might have guessed, these young ladies wrestle almost primarily against boys. Mental strength is the attribute that Garcia and Marron each possess in abundance, as they continue to defy traditional gender stereotypes through this grueling season. Clarissa Clare Garcia is a junior at Claremont, and is fifth in a family of 11 children. Garcia started wrestling at the beginning of the season with virtually no experience. In fact, when Garcia told her family she would go out for the boys wrestling team, her brother wagered $20 that she would not make it through her first tournament. I showed him. He paid me right away, and didnt say anything else about it, Garcia said. Dina Marron is currently in her second year at CHS, and is looking to become a preschool teacher in the future. Marron plays the piano and the bass guitar, and comes from a family of 8 children. Marron joined the team less

Claremont High School head wrestling coach Gerald Escalante speaks with Dina Marron after she lost in a pin during a recent meet at Charter Oak High School. The Charter Oak team was particularly strong and CHS won only one match during the junior varsity meet.

than a month ago, and she has cited Coach Gerald Escalante as the main reason behind her determination to join and continue to wrestle throughout the season. My mom told me, Dont get hurt, but I want to do more than just that.
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Claremont High School wrestler Dina Marron faces off with her opponent during a recent wrestling meet at Charter Oak High School.

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COURIER photos/Steven Felschundneff Claremont High School wrestler Dina Marron waits for her match to begin recently during the Packs junior varsity meet at Charter Oak High School. Marron and her teammate Clarissa Garcia are both relatively new members of the CHS wrestling team.

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COURIER photos/Steven Felschundneff Claremont High School head wrestling coach Gerald Escalante offers some direction to one of his players during a recent junior varsity meet at CHS. At left is Clarissa Garcia who is one of 2 girls on the wrestling team.

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Coach has helped me build up my confidence to wrestle against boys. He has been a role model to me, she said. Escalante stresses the mental aspect of the sport before the physical: Coach told us to always think that we can win before we wrestle. He is there yelling instructions in our ears when were on the mat, so I know what to do and have support. Escalante has never hesitated to throw both ladies into bouts, but always makes sure that they are ready mentally and physically. Even though the girls have not won a match yet, its clear wrestling boys has not intimidated them. I was scared the first time I wrestled a boy. When I finally got to wrestle a girl, it felt like I had a chance, Marron said. That sentiment is likely to fade over time, as both ladies improve on their skill sets and show that girls can be just as good as boys at wrestling. Garcia and Marron will each wrestle in the CIF allgirls tournament at the seasons end. Garcia has had more time to develop her on-the-mat strategy. I am working on a signature move, the headlock. I am more confident in my hand fighting and hope to win my first match before the season is out. It will be interesting to see how they perform against girls after honing their skills against boys all season. We certainly hope to see both Garcia and Marron wrestle next year, after competing in CIF in February. These ladies want those who say wrestling is a mans sport to remember, girls can do whatever guys can.
Chris Oakley sports@claremont-courier.com

Dina Marron, left, and Clarissa Garcia are wrestling on the Claremont High School junior varsity team.

Fountain of life

FOCUS/Unique Women of Claremont 2013

Marilee Scaff never stops giving to the Claremont community

Marilee Scaff in younger days during her travels through Canada and Alaska.

here is hardly an area of community service Marilee Scaff has left untouched in her nearly 70 years living in Claremont.

Theres her devotion to Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, for example. Ms. Scaff is entering her 30th year as a volunteer at the local botanic garden, where she indulges her never-ending curiosity about native wildflowers, a passion developed as a young child. She has also made a name for herself with the local chapter of the League of Women Voters, serving at both the local and county level. Asking her to reflect on her other areas of involvement over the years prompts a long list, from the Community Friends of International Students to the United Nations Association, and she mentions each name with a devout level of interest. Perhaps Ms. Scaff found the fountain of youth in her healthy dose of community engagement because this 97-year-old is sharp as a whip, with walker in hand at city council and Sustainable Claremont meetings and League of Women Voters gatherings. She continues to be Claremonts resident expert in water rights, though she would humbly dispute the title. I am not an expert on anything, she says. I just know a lot of things. Ms. Scaff may have retired long ago, but the lifelong career woman never stopped. When I retired, I began another whole career, she joked, adding with a laugh, I ought to have quit. On a warm Tuesday afternoon, a stack of books is piled neatly in her front room, some she perceives as

COURIER photo/Peter Weinberger Marilee Scaff talks of her eventful life at her home in Claremont.

light reading, displays her varied interests: Doing Environmental Ethics by Robert Traer, Botswana: The Insiders Guide by Ian Michler, Both Feet on the Land by Narayan, to name a few. An inquisitive spirit has always fed the ever-inquiring mind of Ms. Scaff, who was fervently interested in just about everything she came across as a child. That spirit continues today. Ms. Scaff was born in November 1915 in San Marcos, Texas. One of 4 daughters, she enjoyed the outdoors as a young girl, hiking, fishing and hunting with her father. Because there were no sons in the family, I did with my dad all things a male child would have done, Ms. Scaff said. One of our great joys in the summer was backpacking in the Sierras. The family did a fair amount of traveling, as Ms. Scaff loved car trips. His work with the Southern Pacific Railroad also kept the family traversing back and forth between Arizona and southern California, where Ms. Scaff did most of her growing. Out of these travels and childhood adventures was also born a great

Ms. Scaff's main travelling companion was her husband Alvin.

sense of curiosity. I loved getting around and seeing the country, Ms. Scaff said. I was very interested in the Indian cultures of Arizona and in the native wildflowers. I can remember as an elementary school child going out to the desert and digging out desert bulbs and my mother saying, Honey, I dont think you can make them grow in the soil we have at home. I tried but they didnt grow. Higher education allowed her to continue adding to her ever-expanding knowledge base. She returned to her home state for a bachelors degree in sociology and economics from the University of Texas. It was during her undergraduate studies that she met someone with a thirst for knowledge that rivaled her own. Alvin Scaff was a classmate and the president of the Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA), while Ms. Scaff was heavily involved in the Young Womens Christian Association and Mortar Board honor society. We did all kinds of things together in those days, she reflected. Mr. and Ms. Scaff continued to feed their shared desire for knowledge, both going on to graduate work at the University of Chicago. Though Ms. Scaff acknowledged that, at that time, many women were purposefully kept from admission into graduate programs, she never experienced any problems in her schooling. It was later, when she was trying to make it
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into the professional world, that she faced gender discrimination. When her husband took a job as the graduate dean of the University of Iowa in the late 1960s, Ms. Scaff was selected for a position within the school of education. She was the first and only woman on the faculty of 35 men. The chair of the department told me he didnt want a woman on his faculty, Ms. Scaff said, adding, You now run into what they speak of as sexual harassment. Then, it was all just humor at my expense. I learned to laugh. After receiving their diplomas, Ms. Scaff earning a masters degree in theology and social ethics, the couple married in 1938: In those days, you didnt get married until you finish your graduate work, Ms. Scaff noted. In addition to many other things, both she and her husband shared a keen interest in cultures, particularly those left untouched by civilization. That interest mingled with their love for students as the Scaffs set to work as teachers under the mission board of the congregational church, schooling children in a remote mountain village in the Philippines, where they began their family. It was during these years that the war began. In 1943, the Scaffs were captured by the
MARILEE SCAFF continues on page 10 COURIER photo/Peter Weinberger Marilee Scaff's latest mission involves Claremont water rights. She says the only way the city can manage future cost increases is to manage water themselves.

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COURIER photo/Peter Weinberger Marilee Scaff travelled the world, but always had a special connection to Africa.

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COURIER photo/Peter Weinberger Marilee Scaff considers herself an activist with longtime Claremont roots.

Japanese in a mountain raid and placed in an internment camp. We thought [the camp] looked pretty good compared to some of the places we had been, Ms. Scaff noted. It was crowded, very crowded, but actually living out in the mountains was more difficult. The Scaffs were rescued by the 101st Airborne Division in 1945: We were told not to go outside and look, but everyone looked anyway, she recalled. It was very exciting. Her oldest son Lawrence celebrated his third birthday on the boat ride home. Upon their return stateside, Ms. Scaff and her husband settled in Claremont in 1947, where Mr. Scaff took a job as a sociology professor at Pomona College. As she raised her childrenLawrence, Charles and MarilynMs. Scaff took part-time work teaching nursery school and as director of Christian education at the Claremont Church, now the Claremont United Church of Christ. With a love for teaching, especially

mentoring pre-adolescent children, Ms. Scaff later began work as a teacher at El Roble Intermediate School and then as a counselor. She served on the Claremont Unified School Districts Board of Education from 1955 to 1960 and earned her PhD in educational psychology from the Claremont Graduate University. Though work took them all over the countryteaching at the University of Iowa, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and back to the Philippines and travels brought them to different parts of the world, with Botswana a particular favorite, they always returned to Claremont. And all the while, Ms. Scaff had become an active part of the local chapter of the League of Women Voters (LWV). It was so nice to sit around with a group of women who talked about ideas instead of recipes and children, she said, emphasizing her enjoyment in participating in the leagues many studies and committees. The league is very good at trying to promote the informed participation of citizens in government. She worked through the LWV to further her interests in policy dealing with the children she advocated for at local schools. In 1991, she conducted a study called Child and Adolescent Welfare in Pomona Valley. Through her leadership, the league also formed the LWV Environmental Action Committee for southern California and hosted a Whats Next for Our Hillsides? conference in 1989, which in turn, began her journey into the study of water issues surrounding Claremont. However, her interest in the subject of water began long before. I am enough of a westerner to be very concerned about where the water comes from, Ms. Scaff explained. With the dry, desert-like land and increased population, you can have a terrible problem with water, and we [at the LWV] became concerned about how to save water. Through the league, Ms. Scaff became well acquainted with the states water plan over the years. She remembers well the fateful meeting in 2005 where she made the motion to create a water task force to conduct a water study. The vote was unanimous. I should have been smart enough to know they would make me the chair, she quipped. The work of the LWV Water Task Force continues to be cited as an integral study as the city of Claremont once again explores water acquisition. Pinpointing the main thing she took away from the study, Ms. Scaffs answer is clear. Local control is exceedingly important, to the city, to the residents, to the people who need water here, she said. We should never have let the water get out of our hands, but at the time when we started, the little southern California water company headquartered in San Dimas seemed like just a friendly neighbor. It has turned into a big national company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, much more concerned about their benefits to stockholders. Her involvement in water is just one of many layers that have added richness and color to Ms. Scaffs full and varied life of service. She looks on all her accomplishments with fondness. Though she says she has slowed down in recent years, it might just be her humble streak kicking in. She continues to be as pertinent and instrumental today as ever before with her present commitment to aiding Claremonts move toward a more sustainable future. She hopes her work, past and present, will inspire a future generation of women and engaged citizens eager to work hard for what they believe in. I am very encouraged by the city council pushing for this acquisition of the water company. I think at the present, the movement of the community in establishing itself as forward-looking for the future is very, very important and exciting to be a part of, Ms. Scaff said. Being able to be a part of that kind of a community is something we all ought to treasure and participate in, however we can. So I do what I can. I cant do everything, but I wish I could.
Beth Hartnett news@claremont-courier.com

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Global campaign, One Billion Rising, to help stop violence against women and girls

laremont will join with activists around the world for One Billion Rising, the largest day of action in the history of V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. The event, scheduled Thursday, February 14 from 4 to 6 p.m., will be held at the Claremont Forum in the Packing House and will include speakers, poets, music and dance.

One Billion Rising began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than one billion women and girls. On February 14, 2013, V-Days 15th anniversary, Claremont will join activists, writers, thinkers, celebrities and women and men across the world as they express outrage, demand change, strike, dance and rise in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end to violence against women. The event is free and open to the public. To learn more, visit www.onebillionrising.org. To learn more about the Claremont event, visit onebillionrising.org/page/event/detail/startarising/4jvrr.

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onsidering that some 6 million Jewish people were killed by the Nazis, along with tens of thousands of Gypsies and other minorities, learning about the Holocaust can be a deeply disillusioning experience.
Monique Saigal, a recently retired Pomona College professor whose grandmother, Rivka Leiba, was killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, is a living testament to mans potential inhumanity to man. There was, however, another facet of human nature displayed during World War II: a heroism that showed itself through acts of quiet resistance and daring rebellion. Ms. Saigal was saved by one such act. France is besieged In 1940, the French government surrendered to the Nazis andunder the direction of newly appointed premiere Philippe Ptainagreed to cooperate with Germany on the promise that France would not be divided between the Axis powers. While Germany occupied three-fifths of northern France, French Resistance forces, under the direction of Charles de Gaulle, refused to surrender or recognize the resulting Vichy Government, so the remaining portion of southern France remained free. For the next 4 years, the Vichy Regime openly collaborated with the Nazis as they persecuted Jews in Occupied France. First, they were ordered to wear a yellow star, identifying themselves as Juif. Then, in July of 1942, 13,000 Romanian Jews in Paris, where Ms. Saigal and her family lived, were rounded up and sent to the Drancy transit camp and then to Auschwitz. Eventually, 70,000 French Jews would be killed. Ms. Saigals grandmother, who was of Romanian descent, escaped the first raid. The next month, fearing for her granddaughters life, Ms. Leiba threw Ms. Saigal, then 3, on a train with a group of children heading for southwest France. The children, whose fathers had all died in combat, were going to stay with volunteer families for a month-long vacation from wartime woes. While her father, Aaron Sgal, had been killed in the trenches of France, no arrangements had been made for Ms. Saigal to accompany the delegation. Whether because Ms. Leiba was in a hurry or because she wanted to hide her granddaughters Jewish name, she wasnt even wearing a nametag. Twenty-year-old Jacqueline Baleste and her father, a veteran who had been injured in World War I, came to the train station in the village of Le expecting to pick up a 4-year-old boy. When he didnt show, they encountered a little girl with blonde hair and a red dress, crying and clutching the hand of a slightly older boy. They decided to take her home. Later, Ms. Baleste would say, Angels sent me this little girl. On September 26, 1942, the day before Ms. Saigal was scheduled to return to Paris, French police knocked on the door of her grandmothers apartment,
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Professor shares stories of hidden childhood, heroism

COURIER photo/Steven Felschundneff Retired Pomona College French language professor Monique Saigal wrote French Heroines about some of the women who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Ms. Saigal, who is Jewish, survived the Holocaust because of the heroism of a woman who sheltered her even though they were strangers.

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tipped off by her concierge. When they asked Ms. Leiba to gather her things, she refused, saying, Where Im going, Im not going to need anything. Her words proved grimly prescient. She was taken to Drancy and then sent to Auschwitz, where she was gassed on September 25, 1943. Ms. Saigals mother sent a telegram to the Balestes, asking if they could care for her a while longer. The family, who had grown fond of little Monique, agreed. Her mother wouldnt pick her up until 1950, 5 years after the war had ended. Moving on with her life Growing up in Le, Ms. Saigal had no memories of her grandmother and, given the danger, had little contact with any family. Her mother came to see her once but when someone in the village denounced her as a Jew, she quickly fled on her bicycle. Moniques life with the Balestes, whose home featured a flower garden and a farmyard teeming with chickens and rabbits, was simple. There was no telephone or radio and there was an outhouse instead of indoor plumbing, but her adoptive family was affectionate and welcoming. Ms. Saigal was on the brink of adolescence when she went back to live with her mother, which proved a difficult transition. Her mother was not as demonstrative as her adoptive god-

mother had been. Whats more, Ms. Saigal was suddenly expected to be Jewish again, when she had been raised for 8 years as a Catholic. As a result of her earlier experiences, Ms. Saigals life was fraught with a fractured sense of identity and fears of abandonment, which she would deal with as an adult through therapy. Her mother, who had since remarried, didnt want to talk about the war that resulted in the loss of her husband and mother. Much later, Ms. Saigal would learn her mother had spent 6 months hidden in southern France and that she had bravely transported weapons hidden in a baby carriage and distributed them to Resistance fighters. Ms. Saigals new stepfather was American and so, in 1956, the family moved to Los Angeles, where she took on a second dual identity. Along with being both Jewish and Catholic, she became French and American. After 2 years of high school, Ms. Saigal went to LA City College and then UCLA, where she studied Spanish and French literature. She met and married her husband, a Bolivian man who happened to be Catholic, adding another layer to her fractured sense of ethnic identity. In 1965, Ms. Saigal was hired as a professor at Pomona College where she taught French, literature and film. Her family settled in Claremont but over the years, she returned many times to

Monique Saigal as a child when she lived with the Baleste family in south France.

Jacqueline Baleste rescued Monique Saigal in 1942 and raised her for 8 years.

France to take in the sights and to savor a culture she values. French people like to read books and discuss them and perhaps not agree with each other but still like each other, Ms. Saigal noted. I like French food, too, and French films are always interesting. She also kept in touch with Ms. Baleste, who at 91 is still alive and living in the French Pyrenees. Ms. Saigal did not, however, think much about her experiences in World War II. For many years, it didnt bother me, Ms. Saigal said. I didnt see myself as being hidden.

Monique Saigals grandmother, Rivka Leiba, was gassed by the Nazis at Auschwitz in 1942. FRENCHRESISTANCE continues on page 14

Curtis Real Estate's current location back in the 1950's

Curtis Real Estate was founded in 1947 by Florence Curtis at a time when few women were involved in real estate brokerage or even worked outside of the home. The family-owned business, now in its 66th year, is headed by Carol Curtis, 3rd generation owner/broker and granddaughter of Florence.

Carol Curtis
Broker/Owner 1994 - Present

Florence Curtis
Broker/Owner 1947 - 1979

Sales Associates: John Baldwin, Craig Beauvais, Maureen Mills, Nancy & Bob Schreiber, Patricia Simmons, Corinna Soiles, Carol Wiese

Carol Curtis, Broker

Continuing the family tradition in the Claremont Village since 1947

(909) 626-1261 www.curtisrealestate.com

107 N. Harvard, Claremont CA 91711

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Embracing the past As years went by, however, her history began to nag at her. Ms. Saigal contacted a Los Angeles professor who specialized in working with the hidden children of the Holocaust. After hearing her story, the professor told her, You still have a hidden life. The professors pronouncement resonated with Ms. Saigal, who gradually began to own her history. In 1995, she traveled to the Yad Vashem Memorial in Israel to honor her godmother and the Baleste family. She also traveled to France in 2007 when Ms. Baleste received the Legion of Honor in France for her deeds of righteousness during World War II. Closer to home, Ms. Saigal decided to tell her story in 1999 to French students enrolled in her course called Paris: Myth or Reality? Two years later, when she heard that a Cal State Los Angeles professor planned to bring a group to France to visit former internment camps and other significant World War II sites, she decided to go along. When the trip, which Pomona College agreed to help finance, was cancelled, Ms. Saigals husband suggested they go anyway. She obtained the original itinerary from the professor, which included a stop at the Drancy transit camp where her grandmother had been briefly held, and they set out for France. Ms. Saigal visited internment camps in villages like Pithiviers and Beaune la Roland. She filmed the Struthof concentration camp in Alsace and strolled through Oradour-sur-Glane, a village that was decimated by the Nazis. The trip provided an opportunity to learn about moments of triumph as well as tragedy. Ms. Saigal and her husband spoke to people in Chambon sur Lignon, a small Protestant enclave whose citizens helped save 5,000 Jews by refusing to report anyone as Jewish to the Nazis. The trip proved to be a watershed moment for Ms. Saigal. This business of being Jewish and Catholic had been confusing, Ms. Saigal said. Doing the research, it liberated me. Inspired, Ms. Saigal decided to write a book focusing on the women of the French Resistance, whose role in defying and thwarting the Nazi regime has

COURIER photos/Steven Felschundneff Pomona College Professor Emeritus self published the book French Heroines about 18 mostly unknown women who courageously fought back against the German occupation of France during World War II.

often gone unacknowledged. Her book, she vowed, would also honor the contributions of her adoptive family and the memories of her father and grandmother, both of whom paid the ultimate price during World War II. Through research and through word of mouth, Ms. Saigal obtained the names of women who performed

heroic acts during World War II as part of the French Resistance, many of whom were still alive. Ms. Saigal spent several summers interviewing and filming living heroines of the French Resistance, whose stories she has highlighted in a book called French Heroines, 1940-1945: Courage, Strength and Ingenuity. Ms. Saigals book includes chapters on 18 women, a number she chose to reflect the Hebrew word and character Chai, meaning life, which has special significance in the Jewish tradition. In Hebrew numerology, the letters add up to the number 18, which represents good luck. Ms. Saigal has also included her own story, including her good luck in being sheltered from the horrors that claimed her grandmothers life by a loving and courageous family. Whether engaged in subtle sabotage, as in the case of the women who broke machinery and tampered with the products of German factories, or in outright spycraft, each of the subjects of Ms. Saigals book is well-deserving of the title of heroine. French Heroines introduces readers to women like Mati Girtanner. The daughter of a Swiss father and a French mother, she was 18 when, in August of 1940, German soldiers invaded the village of Bonne, situated on a river dividing Occupied France and Free France. When they entered her familys garden, Ms. Girtanner, spurred by a Biblical wrath, vowed to join the Resistance. Able to speak good German and armed with a bicycle and a rowboat, she helped hundreds of Jewish people escape from the Nazis, providing them with food, shelter, money and false identity cards. Before she was captured by the Gestapo in 1943, Ms. Girtanner also used a combination of daring, lies, charm and adept piano playing to hide stranded British soldiers, report on the activities of German submarines to Resistance leaders and procure the release of several jailed Resistance fighters.
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Eventually, she was imprisoned for several weeks in a retaliation camp in Paris, and subjected to merciless beatings and experiments on her spinal cord performed by a young Gestapo doctor. Though the experience left Ms. Girtanner permanently disabled, she went on to become a teacher and, years later, mustered the strength to forgive her Nazi torturer. It is a compelling tale, as are the stories of women like Lilian Klein-Lieber, aka Firefly, who helped countless Jewish teens to find hiding places or cross the border into Switzerland; Marthe Cohn, whose flawless German and forged documents without the Jewish stamp allowed her to become a spy for the French army; and Yvette Bernard Farnoux, who helped provide food and support for jailed Resistance fighters and their families before she was arrested and sent first to Auschwitz and then the Ravensbrck womens concentration camp. While the stories of the death of Ms. Saigals grandmother and her fortunate placement with the Baleste family were cut from the original edition of her book when it was published in France, she has produced a translated version of French Heroines in which her own story has been included. Some of the subjects of French Heroism have died since it was written. Ms. Saigal is happy she was able to record their stories while they lived. In most cases, Ms. Saigals heroines were in their 20s or even their teens

During World War II when Monique Saigal was 3-years-old her grandmother Rivka Leiba put her on a train full of children headed for south France. Though she was not supposed to be part of the children traveling that day a stranger Jaqueline Baleste took her in and raised her as one of her own effectively sheltering Ms. Saigal from the Nazis.

when they began aiding the Resistance. She attributes a good portion of their daring to youth, recalling her own boldness when she first moved to Claremont. In 1968, she donned a dress made with fabric emblazoned with Eugene McCarthy campaign buttons and went from door to door,

exhorting people to vote for the poet and Congressman who was running on an anti-war platform. She is not as brazen now, Ms. Saigal said. When youre young, youre not afraid of danger, she said. Id ask these women, Werent you scared? and theyd say, No, because I was in the middle of action. The action of World War II is receding into the past. Nonetheless, she feels that there is much to learn from that time, especially given that history tends to repeat itself.

You should stand up for your rights. If theres something you dont want to accept, you should try to change it. Not in a violent way. There are ways to rebel without using violence, she said, adding, I think people should develop some courage. Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of French Heroines can email Ms. Saigal at msaigal@pomona.edu.
Sarah Torribio storribio@claremont-courier.com