Sabine Zlatin opened a refuge for Jewish children in Izieu, France, on May 6, 1943, to shelter them from Nazi persecution.
On May 6, 1943, Sabine Zlatin, working with the Rhône regional Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE) and local resistance networks, opened a children's home in the small village of Izieu in the Ain department of France. The home was established to shelter Jewish children — many of whom had already lost their parents to deportation — from the escalating roundups occurring in Vichy France following the German occupation of the southern zone in November 1942.
Zlatin, along with her husband Miron Zlatin, had previously worked to place Jewish children in safe homes and had recognized the growing danger facing Jewish families. The colony at Izieu, located in a relatively remote rural area, was chosen specifically for its distance from major roads and its perceived safety. Over the following year, more than 100 children would pass through the home.
This act represented a profound humanitarian intervention at immense personal risk. Harboring Jewish children was a capital offense under Nazi occupation policy, and those caught doing so faced deportation or execution. The home became a rare sanctuary of relative normalcy for traumatized children amid the horrors of the Holocaust.
Tragically, the home would later be discovered and raided by Gestapo forces in April 1944, but its establishment remains a landmark act of rescue and resistance, later commemorated by the Mémorial de la Maison d'Izieu.