Suzanne Spaak

Suzanne Spaak, née Augustine Lorge known as Suzette Spaak (6 July 1905 – 12 August 1944) was a World War II French Resistance operative. On 21 April 1985, Yad Vashem recognized Spaak as Righteous Among the Nations, for helping to smuggle several Jewish children to safety, by providing them with ration cards and clothing. Life Spaak was born in Brussels into a prosperous Belgian banking family in 1905. She married Brussels-born dramatist Claude Spaak (1904-1990), brother of both Charles Spaak, a screenwriter, and Paul-Henri Spaak, a Belgian statesman who was one of first leaders of the European Communities. Living in Paris with her husband and two children, Lucie known affectionately as Pilette and Paul-Louis as Bazou, she enjoyed a life of luxury and prestige as one of the city's leading socialites. Her husband had acquired paintings by their fellow Belgian, René Magritte, and in 1936, Magritte painted her portrait. Her lifestyle changed drastically with the onslaught of World War II and the subsequent occupation of France by Germany. French Resistance Angry with the suppression, brutality and racial intolerance of the Nazis, she volunteered to work with the underground National Movement Against Racism (MNCR). With time and growing atrocities by the Nazis, Spaak devoted herself to ridding France and her native Belgium of its oppressors. She joined the Red Orchestra intelligence network, a Soviet-sponsored organization founded by a Polish Jew, Leopold Trepper.