A religious Sister who sheltered Jews from the Nazis has been honoured with a plaque in her home town of Hull.
Sister Agnes Walsh, who died in 1993, helped to save a Jewish family from deportation while at a convent in southern France during the war.
She was recognised as a “Righteous Among the Nations” decades ago by Israel’s Holocaust remembrance centre Yad Vashem, but her heroism has long been overlooked in Britain.
The plaque, unveiled by Hull’s lord mayor last week, describes her as a “nun and humanitarian who protected Jews during the Holocaust”.
Within a few weeks it will be displayed on the site of the house where she grew up – on Lowgate, opposite the Guildhall, where Hull’s council has its offices.
Born Ada Vallinda Walsh, Sister Agnes joined the Daughters of Charity, serving in Ireland, Jerusalem and then France, where she ended up at a convent in Cadouin, in the Dordogne region.
The mother superior, Sister Louise Garnier, struck up a chance conversation with a Jewish refugee, Pierre Cremieux, at a train station. He had fled the north of France at the urging of friends.
Fifteen months later, amid increasing danger, Cremieux called the convent to ask for help. Sister Agnes, the deputy of the community, answered the call and pleaded with her superior to take the family in.
Cremieux arrived with his wife, two nine-month-old babies and their six-year-old son, Alain.
Alain told the Catholic Herald in 2009 that he had received a warm welcome at the convent. His mother was introduced as a distant relative of Sister Louise, who had come there to rest after the birth of the twins. Many of the Sisters did not know the real reason they were staying there.
As a boy, Alain was sent to live with the local parish priest in the presbytery. He took advantage of the priest’s library where he read about the lives of saints. He was given English lessons by Sister Agnes.
Another complication was that Sister Agnes was pretending to be Irish, not English – she still had an Irish passport from her time in the country. As an Englishwoman – an enemy alien – her presence was a further threat to the nuns’ safety.
The Cremieux family kept in touch with Sister Agnes, exchanging letters with her until her death.
During the occupation of France it is thought that 76,000 Jews were deported from France to German death camps. About 2,500 survived.
Ian Judson, Sister Agnes’s great-nephew, told the Catholic Herald he did not know the full story of what she had done until last year.
“I only found out a few months ago that she hid the family for nearly a year under the noses of the Nazis,” he said. “She was risking death on a daily basis.”
He said it was nice to see her being recognised in her home town at last: “It’s long overdue considering what she did.”
Mr Judson, who is studying journalism, said that, while homeless some time ago, memories of his great-aunt were “an inspiration for me to turn my life around and get to where I am today”.
“I’d think: ‘What would Auntie Ada do in this situation?’ ‘What would she tell me I needed to do?’ Her legacy is still going on,” he said.
He added that she was a “comical character” at times who would “tell you how it was and not suffer fools gladly”. “She was very forgiving and just a generally lovely lady.”
Sister Agnes is one of only 21 British men and women to be honoured as a Righteous Among the Nations.
The number of suicides in Britain’s prisons is “shocking” and “unacceptable”, Bishop Richard Moth of Arundel and Brighton has said.
Suicides in prisons across England and Wales reached their highest ever number last year, according to Ministry of Justice figures. There were 119 self-inflicted deaths – double the number in 2012 – and nearly 38,000 self-harm incidents.
Bishop Moth urged the Government to begin its reforms “as quickly as possible”.
A bishop has denounced the “false anthropology” behind moves to stop doctors referring to pregnant women as “expectant mothers” in case the term offends transgender people.
Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth described the new guidance from the British Medical Association to its 160,000 members as “crazy”.
He said the policy would cause “great confusion and harm” both to wider society and to people struggling with their sexual identity.
The bishop spoke out after the Mail on Sunday reported that the BMA had asked doctors to refer to expectant mothers only as “pregnant people”.
The BMA explained in a booklet called “A Guide to Effective Communication: a Guide to Inclusive Language in the Workplace” that the new term would include women who were pregnant but who had legally changed their gender.
Bishop Egan said the guidance originated from “a completely false anthropology and one that will be gravely damaging to human happiness because it represents a reductionist view of the human person.
“What alarms me equally is the ethics committee of the BMA, which seems to be very narrow-minded,” Bishop Egan continued. “It doesn’t reflect a comprehensive view of philosophical anthropologies.”
He said: “It is Orwellian, isn’t it? It is another example of people trying to control our thoughts and the way we speak. It is crazy.
“The whole experience of motherhood and fatherhood is the most beautiful thing for the human person.”
The bishop added: “Once again, it will cause grave confusion and harm, particularly to that group of people who experience gender dysphoria.”
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