La Maternité Suisse d’Elne

A remarkable building – the architect is not known – but the story behind this building is quite remarkable.  

In 1939, as so many Spanish were fleeing across the border at the end of the Civil War – the Retirada – and being housed in squalid camps on the coast and at Rivesaltes – the site of a haunting Memorial (http://www.memorialcamprivesaltes.eu/), a young Swiss teacher – Elisabeth Eidenbenz – was concerned for the safety of pregnant women, young children and babies, and through the support of the Swiss Red Cross rented this chateau for women to have their babies in as good and nourishing a facility as possible.
 
Between 1939 and 1944, 597 babies were born and kept safe here.  Others were born in annexes in local camps.  Many were Jewish and in those cases the names recorded on the records for those babies were French or Spanish to protect the babies and mothers from the German authorities.  Visit the website to read more - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternité_suisse_d'Elne

See the additional blips
 
Elisabeth died in 2011 aged 98 and in her later years was recognised and honoured by many countries.