August Bohny (July 9, 1919 - August 18, 2016) was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

speech therapist Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...

and

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...

who operated in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Biography

Bohny was born in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

to a father who was a streetcar inspector. He studied at a gymnasium and played

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

and

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

. He was a member of

Service Civil International Service Civil International (SCI) is an international peace organisation, founded by Swiss pacifist Pierre Cérésole in the aftermath of World War I to foster understanding and a culture of peace between people from different countries. Since ...

, an international non-governmental organization. Between 1939–1941 he studied at a teacher's seminary. He was also a graduate of the

Swiss army The Swiss Armed Forces (; ; ; ; ) are the military and security force of Switzerland, consisting of land and air service branches. Under the country's militia system, regular soldiers constitute a small part of the military and the rest are ...

recruit school.

During World War II

During the

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

, Bohny was active in a Swiss rescue organization called "Le Secours Suisse" (The Swiss Rescue), founded by

Maurice Dubois Maurice DuBois (born August 20, 1965) is an American television news presenter, anchorman who is the co-anchor of the ''CBS Evening News'' with John Dickerson (journalist), John Dickerson. Previously, he anchored various newscasts for WCBS-TV, t ...

, who was later also recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. The organization operated in southern France, including in Toulouse, as well as in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon,

. Bohny and his wife, Friedel Bohny-Reiter (who was also later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations), ran an institution in Le Chambon where they sheltered about 800 children between 1941–1944. These children were rescued from concentration camps and hidden in the institution for periods of three to six months, until other hiding places were found for them. Some were orphans, some were Jewish, and some were persecuted for other reasons, such as having parents in the French Resistance. Bohny tried to keep the French police and Gestapo away from the institution and also to hide the presence of the Jewish children there.

After the War

Bohny was a teacher and speech therapist. In 1945 he co-founded a children's home in the Canton of Appenzell Ausser-Rhoden, Switzerland that operated according to the Pestalozzi method. He assisted in the rehabilitation of child survivors of Buchenwald and was also active in other frameworks for children, including Dutch children affected by the famine in the Netherlands in the winter of 1944–1945. Between 1979–1995 Bohny headed the Swiss organization for the blind. He died in Basel on August 18, 2016 at the age of 97.

Recognition

Bohny's story is documented in the archives of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. In 1986 a reunion took place in Le Chambon attended by many of the rescued children. In 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Bohny as Righteous Among the Nations. The rescue story was documented in several films, both documentary and fiction, including "Weapons of the Spirit" directed by Pierre Sauvage, as well as "The Hill of 1000 Children".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bohny, August Swiss Righteous Among the Nations Speech and language pathologists 1919 births 2016 deaths Swiss educators