Henriette, known colloquially to her family as Yetti, was the third daughter in a family of ten children. Her father, my grandfather, like several of my uncles, was a cattle dealer in the nearby mountains. After the death of her husband, Léon Picard, she returned to live in the family home [in Wintzenheim, at 4 rue de la Petite Porte], where she lived with her mother, my grandmother, until 1933, when she passed away. She had no children. She was known and loved by everyone for her great kindness and sense of hospitality, looking after widows and orphans and, at the time of the war, those fleeing Nazi Germany.
Like all Jews, she was forced to leave Alsace at the start of the war, and settled in Angers after a stay in Vittel and Nantes. It was in Angers that she was arrested on Yom Kippur 1942. She could have crossed the demarcation line to try and find shelter in the southern zone, but she refused to abandon the three sick people in her care. All four were murdered in Auschwitz. She was 56 years old.
