Fernande Fain

Fernande Fain was born to Polish parents in Charleroi in 1923. At the age of fourteen, she was taken on as an apprentice seamstress in her sister Claire’s workshop. Fernande acquired Belgian nationality in January 1940, but fled to France when war broke out a few months later. She settled in the small town of Noyant in the Maine-et-Loire department. The French authorities kept her and the other foreign Jews living locally under surveillance and their freedom of movement was severely curtailed. Fernande Fain (19) was arrested during a raid in the region on 16 July 1942. She was deported four days later via Transport 8 from Angers to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There is no trace of her after her arrival. She did not survive deportation.