About the Family

The HELFT, LOEVI and ROSENBERG families and Louise MANGEONJEAN were issued visas by Aristides de Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux on June 18, 1940.

The families crossed into Portugal where they settled in Sintra. They would eventually immigrate to the USA in separate groups. Paul ROSENBERG was a famous and influential art dealer who represented Picasso and Matisse. In September 1940, Jacques and Marianne HELFT, accompanied by their children, Etienne, Georges, and Leon, sailed on the vessel Nea Hellas from Lisbon to New York. Yvon Salomon and Madeleine Marthe HELFT also made the crossing in September 1940 on the Exeter, along with Paul and Marguerite Ida ROSENBERG and their daughter Micheline Nanette. Marguerite Gabrielle LOEVI, accompanied by her nurse, Louise MANGEONJEAN, sailed to New York on the Exeter the following month, in October 1940. Several of the young men in the family were forced to remain in France as they were eligible for conscription: Jean and François HELFT as well as Alexandre Paul ROSENBERG.

Alexandre Paul ROSENBERG boarded the vessel Battory, the troop ship that was evacuating Polish troops from France in 1940. When the ship arrived in England, Alexandre was arrested as an enemy alien. He told the British that he knew Winston Churchill personally because Churchill, who was an amateur painter, used to come to the Rosenberg gallery to borrow paintings that he would copy and then return. The British checked out the story, which was true, and freed Alexandre. He joined the Free French Forces as an officer, and after fighting in the campaign in North Africa was part of the liberation of Paris, Strasbourg and Colmar as part of the French Second Armored Division.