Béatrice and brother Nissim de Camondo in 1916

Béatrice de Camondo (1894 – 1944) was a French socialite and a Holocaust victim.

[edit] Life

Born into the Camondo family of Paris, she was the daughter of Moïse de Camondo and Irène Cahen d'Anvers, both of whom were from prominent Jewish banking families. One of two children, her older brother Nissim served as a fighter pilot during World War I and in 1917 was killed in action.

In 1918 Béatrice de Camondo married composer Léon Reinach (1893-1944), the son of Theodore Reinach. They had the following children:

1. Fanny (born July 26, 1920 in Paris - died in 1944)
2. Bertrand (born July 1, 1923 in Paris - died in 1944)

On her father's death in 1935, Béatrice inherited a large fortune. Her father bequeathed his Paris home, including its contents and a major collection of art, to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs to be used to create the Musée Nissim de Camondo in his son's honor.

In 1943, under the German occupation of France during World War II, Béatrice de Camondo and her family were forcibly removed from their Paris home and taken to the Drancy deportation camp north of the city. Today, a plaque on the wall at Musée Nissim de Camondo tells what happened to them: "Mme. Leon Reinach, born Béatrice de Camondo, her children, Fanny and Bertrand, the last descendants of the founder, and M. Léon Reinach, deported by the Germans in 1943-44, died at Auschwitz.^[1]

[edit] References