Archives de l'OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants)

The Society for the Health of the Jewish Population (today Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants-OSE) was created in 1912 in Saint Petersburg (Russia). Its initial mission: to protect, feed and support Jewish children who were victims of poverty and persecution.

During the dark years of World War II in France, OSE turned into a Resistance organization. Its leaders, trainers and educators became rescuers, caretakers and heroes, hiding children under their responsibility behind false identities.

Once the War had ended, OSE faced the daunting task of accompanying to adulthood the children who had been orphaned and to take in others who had just been freed from concentration camps.

Years later, with the end of the War in North Africa, came waves of migrants, children and families, who needed help integrating into France.

In 1951, OSE was recognized as a “Non-Profit Organization for the Public Good”. Today, it is open to people of all backgrounds and has diversified its missions to accommodate different needs and sectors of society.

Based on its strong and unique experience in rescuing generations of uprooted children, OSE has developed more than ever before its commitment to children and to health issues.

The Organization also invests its efforts in the areas of handicap and dependency, as well as support to Holocaust survivors.

Read more on OSE's history here.

The Archives and History Department's mission is to reconstruct the history of the OSE, an association created in 1912 in Saint Petersburg and established in France since the early 1930s.

One of the main missions of the service is to accompany people, mainly survivors and/or their families or relatives, in their research and procedures, particularly with a view to having their rights recognised.

In addition to its research and support role, the Archives and History Department uses a variety of media to pass on the history of the association during the war and in the post-war period: writing and publishing historical books and articles, designing exhibitions on different aspects of the OSE's history, taking part in conferences and colloquia, digitising children's files and archival documents, enriching the photographic database, assisting in the writing of testimonies and collecting testimonies of hidden children.

Some 3,700 files of children from the Shoah who passed through the association's children's homes, as well as around 3,500 files of children who emigrated from the Maghreb countries and Egypt, are kept in the association's premises. Each file traces the history of the child and his or her family.

https://www.ose-france.org/je-minforme/nos-publications/