Albert Gustave Bedane 1893-1980

'Righteous Among the Nations' - On the 4th of January 2000 Albert Bedane was recognised as one of the Righteous among the Nations. This is the highest Holocaust honour given by the state of Israel.

Albert Gustave Bedane hid Mary Erica Richardson, a Dutch Jewess, for nearly two years from June 1943. Bedane was born in Angers, France in 1893, arriving in Jersey the following year. He served in the 1/9th Hants Regiment between 1917 and 1920 and in the medical staff of the Royal Jersey Militia with the rank of sergeant. Bedane became a naturalised British subject in Jersey's Royal Court in 1921. By profession he was a chartered masseur (physiotherapist) and established a clinic at Greenwood, 45 Roseville Street, St Helier.

Bedane's humanitarianism is well recorded. As well as Mrs Richardson he hid an escaped French prisoner of war and a number of Russian forced workers. He never sought to derive any material benefit from his humanitarianism and was only able to feed those he was hiding by taking food from his patients in exchange for his massage services.

Albert Bedane - 'Righteous Among the Nations'

Bedane was well aware of the risks involved in hiding escapees. When asked why he had risked his life he testified: 'I had a few nightmares occasionally but I thought that if I was going to be killed I would rather be killed for a sheep than a lamb anyway'. Notices were regularly published warning Islanders that they faced severe penalties if they aided escapees and a number of Islanders were deported to concentration camps for aiding escaped forced workers. Typically, Louisa Gould who was denounced for sheltering an escaped forced worker was deported and died in Ravensbrück.

Mrs Richardson married Edmund Richardson, a sea captain, born in Lincolnshire, England in 1887. He was not Jewish. From 1933 to 1938 the Richardsons lived at Waverley Place, St Helier, moving to 8 Overseas Flats, Dicq Road, St Saviour before the Occupation. Mrs Richardson had not registered under the first anti-Jewish Order of October 1940. However, in February 1941 she registered under the 'Registration and Identification of Persons (Jersey) Order, 1940' requiring the registration of all Islanders for the purposes of issuing identity cards. Although she completed the 'details' section of the registration form as Mary Erica Richardson, she signed the form only as Erica Richardson. It is possible that she adopted the name 'Mary' only at the time of registration. Furthermore, she misstated her maiden name as Algenon rather than Olvenich, both probably in an effort to conceal her Jewish origins.

Mrs Richardson completed her 1941 registration form stating her place of birth as 'N. Amsterdam, British Guiana', and date of birth as 17 December 1888. However, no record of her birth exists in British Guiana. Neighbours remember her as having a Dutch accent and she was described as Dutch by both Albert Bedane and Francis Le Sueur. Her Dutch origins are further suggested by Albert Bedane's statement that Mrs Richardson had written to him after the war promising that he would be recognised by the Dutch government for saving her life. Diane Baguet (née Sowden) remembered Mrs Richardson as, 'Dutch, quite short in height and of Jewish appearance'. Patrick Sowden also clearly recalled Mrs Richardson as having a foreign accent. It would seem that this again was an effort to disguise her origins.

On 25 June 1943 Mrs Richardson was 'taken' by Aliens Office officials to be photographed. The Aliens Office general diary records: 'Mrs Mary Erica Richardson (nee Algernon) of 8, Overseas, Dicq Rd R/C No 30712 taken to Mr Freeman (Scott's) Broad St. -I/D card returned'. The fact that she was 'taken' to Scott's the photographers rather than merely required to attend was unusual and it is the only entry of its kind in the Aliens Office diary. A Scott's receipt dated 25 June notes four photographs taken that day. The receipt is signed by Reginald Payne who was the Assistant Registration Officer in charge of affixing photos, and it would seem likely that it was either he or the Aliens Office clerk Miss Luxon who escorted Mrs Richardson to Scotts. The photograph attached to her surviving registration card, copies of which were distributed by the Attorney-General on the following day in the search for her, is of studio quality indicating that it was one of those taken at Scotts on 25 June.

It is probable that Mrs Richardson had not complied with the German order requiring the mass photographing of the general population in 1942, possibly fearing that her Jewish appearance may alert the German authorities. At the time of the initial registration of the Island's population in 1941, due to the lack of photographic materials, photographs were not affixed to the identity cards of British nationals. However, in May 1942 all Islanders were required to present themselves for photographing at specially established centres in each parish for the purpose of affixing photographs to their personal identity card and to each of the two sets of Registration Cards kept by the Aliens Office. In Dec 1942 and May 1943 Clifford Orange, the Chief Registration and Aliens Officer prepared lists of those who had not complied with the photographic order but Mrs Richardson's name does not appear on either list. Those listed were ordered in writing to attend the Aliens Office. Orange wrote to the Attorney-General on 9 March: 'It seems clear, therefore, that these refractory persons can only be compelled to obey the Order by police action, other methods adopted by this Office having failed'.

It is unclear whether Mrs Richardson was 'taken' to Scotts at the instigation of the Aliens Office or the German authorities. However, later that day she went into hiding. Around the time of her attendance at Scotts Mrs Richardson was interviewed by the Germans and ordered for deportation.

Mary Richardson's registration card 1941

The Jersey Evening Post interviewed Albert Bedane in June 1970:

'She [Mrs Richardson] had been questioned by the Germans at College House, the Feldkommandantur, and was allowed to go home and collect her jewels and valuables because, she was told she was to be sent to a “very nice, special camp where she would be well looked after and she would need her best things with her". While she was getting ready to go to the very nice camp she managed to escape and made her way to Mr Bedane's physiotherapy clinic.'

Norman Longmate in an account published in 1972 provides a slightly different account of the day's events, apparently derived from a post-war interview with Bedane. He stated that after being interviewed at the Feldkommandantur, Mrs Richardson was escorted home under German guard to pack up her possessions. Mrs Richardson, however, managed to divert the attention of her German guard and escaped to Bedane's home.

Whatever the exact circumstances of Mrs Richardson escape, we now know from the Attorney-General's letter to the Constables that she went into hiding at Bedane's clinic on 25 June 1943, the day she was taken to Scotts photographers. Albert Bedane's clinic in Roseville Street was only a few hundred yards from Overseas Flats. The clinic, attached to Bedane's home, incorporated a three-room cellar of less than five feet in height where Mrs Richardson was at first hidden. After a few months she moved to a net curtained room on an upper floor of the house.

Immediately the Germans realised Mrs Richardson was missing they instigated a search and ordered the Constable of St Helier to inform the other 11 parish Constables of her disappearance. On the following day, 26 June, Jersey's Attorney-General, wrote to the Parish Constables:

'I understand that you were recently informed by the Constable of St Helier, in compliance with an Order of the Occupying Authorities, that a Mrs Mary Erica Richardson (nee Algernon) was missing from her last registered address, 8, Overseas Flats, Dicq Road, St Saviour.'

'I have now been requested to forward to you for your information, and to assist you for the purposes of identification, two copies of the photograph of Mrs Richardson which is attached to her registration papers.'

The Attorney-General annotated his file copy of this letter: '2.7.43 –Town Hall states that maiden name should read “OLVENICH”'

One eye-witness well remembers the Germans searching for Mrs Richardson. Patrick Sowden, then eight years of age, was standing outside the block of apartments when two plain-clothed German officers approached in a staff car. They demanded that he direct them to the Richardsons' flat. He led them down the staircase leading to front door of No 8 and well remembered his surprise that Captain Richardson feigned senility when questioned by the two German officers.

Bedane recounted, in his Jersey Evening Post interview of June 1970, that whilst in hiding Mrs Richardson changed her hairstyle, wore dark glasses and occasionally sat out in the garden. She escaped detection by returning to the secret cellar whenever the house was searched by the Germans. In the final weeks of the war Mrs Richardson came out of hiding to care for her husband, who was by then an invalid, taking this risk on the assumption that as many of the German forces had been replaced since her disappearance she would have been forgotten. Indeed she survived the remainder of the Occupation without detection.

The Jersey Evening Post noted in their 1970 interview with Bedane: 'Mrs Richardson, before she died, spent some time in an Austrian clinic after the war was over, and she wrote to Mr Bedane from there to thank him again for saving her life, and saying that the Dutch Government would no doubt have been in touch with him.'

Albert Bedane was presented with a gold watch by the Russian Government in 1965 in recognition of his efforts to save escaped Russian forced workers. However, he was never recognised by the Dutch government. Albert Bedane died in Jersey in 1980.

After the details of his heroism emerged an application was made in May 1999 for his posthumous recognition by the State of Israel. This application jointly made by the Holocaust Education Trust and the Jersey Jewish Congregation was endorsed by Prof David Cesarani, Director of the Wiener Library, and Lord Jakobovits, the late Chief Rabbi. On 4 January 2000 Yad Vashem announced their formal recognition of Albert Gustave Bedane as 'Righteous among the Nations', Israel's highest Holocaust honour.