During World War II, Gerlier condemned Pierre Laval's deportation of Jews to Nazideath camps,[1] the severe conditions of which he also opposed.[2] Moreover, he asked that Roman Catholicreligious institutes take Jewish children into hiding.[2] For his efforts to save Jews during World War II he was posthumously awarded the title Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1981.[3] However, Gerlier controversially did nothing to prevent the deportotion to Auschwitz of the leading French Jew, Jacques Helbronner. On October 28} the Gestapo arrested the president of the Consistoire, who was a personal friend of both Petain and Gerlier. Vichy was immediately informed and so was Cardinal Gerlier. Helbronner and his wife were deported from Drancy to Auschwitz in transport number 62 that left French territory on November 20 1943. They were gassed on arrival (Between October 28 and November 20}. Neither the Vichy authorities nor the head of the French Catholic Church intervened in any way. 'That Petain did not intervene is not astonishing, that Gerlier abstained demonstrates that to the very end the leaders of the French church maintained their ambiguous attitude even toward those French Jews who were the closest to them. (Source: Vichy France: "Our Jews" and the Rest by Saul Friedlander accessed via http://courseresources.mit.usf.edu/cas/woh2022/m10_2/story_content/external_files/VichyFrance.pdf).
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