August Bohny

August Bohny (July 9, 1919 - August 18, 2016) was a Swiss teacher, speech therapist and Righteous Among the Nations who operated in France.^[1]

Bohny was born in Basel to a father who was a streetcar inspector. He studied at a gymnasium and played piano and clarinet. He was a member of Service Civil International, an international non-governmental organization. Between 1939–1941 he studied at a teacher's seminary. He was also a graduate of the Swiss army recruit school.^[1]

During the war, Bohny was active in a Swiss rescue organization called "Le Secours Suisse" (The Swiss Rescue), founded by Maurice Dubois, who was later also recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. The organization operated in southern France, including in Toulouse, as well as in La Chambon-sur-Lignon, France. Bohny and his wife, Friedel Bohny-Reiter (who was also later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations), ran an institution in La Chambon where they sheltered about 800 children between 1941–1944. These children were rescued from concentration camps and hidden in the institution for periods of three to six months, until other hiding places were found for them. Some were orphans, some were Jewish, and some were persecuted for other reasons, such as having parents in the French Resistance.^[2]

Bohny tried to keep the French police and Gestapo away from the institution and also to hide the presence of the Jewish children there.^[3]

Bohny was a teacher and speech therapist. In 1945 he co-founded a children's home in the Canton of Appenzell Ausser-Rhoden, Switzerland that operated according to the Pestalozzi method. He assisted in the rehabilitation of child survivors of Buchenwald and was also active in other frameworks for children, including Dutch children affected by the famine in the Netherlands in the winter of 1944–1945. Between 1979–1995 Bohny headed the Swiss organization for the blind.^[1]

He died in Basel on August 18, 2016 at the age of 97.

Bohny's story is documented in the archives of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. In 1986 a reunion took place in La Chambon attended by many of the rescued children. In 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Bohny as Righteous Among the Nations. The rescue story was documented in several films, both documentary and fiction, including "Weapons of the Spirit" directed by Pierre Sauvage, as well as "The Hill of 1000 Children".^[4]