Odette Marie-Louise Bergoffen (; née Blanchet; 19 October 1924 – 6 January 2026) was a French Resistance member who helped save members of the Jewish Moscovici family from deportation during the German occupation of France. She served as a liaison and intelligence agent for Libération-Nord under the code name "Michèle" and was recognised by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 1994.
Biography Born in Vernoil on 19 October 1924, Bergoffen was the daughter of Eugène and Marie-Louise Blanchet. She worked on a farm in her youth and met the Moscovicis, a Jewish family who became close to her own family. During the German occupation, she anticipated the impending deportation of her Jewish friends.
In September 1942, during a roundup of Jews in the region, Louise Moscovici escaped arrest after leaving her children, six-year-old Jean-Claude and two-year-old Liliane, with neighbours. Blanchet helped Louise escape, travelling with her by bicycle to a nearby railway station and then by train to Tours. When their intended refuge proved unavailable, Blanchet arranged temporary shelter and contacted , a leader of the French Resistance, who provided false identity papers that enabled Louise to cross into the Zone libre.
Jean-Claude and Liliane remained in Vernoil but were subsequently arrested, imprisoned in Angers, and transferred to the Drancy internment camp. Relatives secured their release and they were placed in a children's home operated by the Union générale des israélites de France (UGIF) in Paris. Because the institution was known to the authorities, Blanchet secretly removed the two children and took them to safety in Tours. She remained in hiding with them until January 1943, when she reunited them with their mother. Blanchet and the three Moscovicis subsequently lived under false identities with her uncle and aunt in Morannes until the final months of the occupation. The family returned to Vernoil in March 1945.
Blanchet was also active in the organised French Resistance. Under the code name "Michèle", she served as a liaison and intelligence agent for Libération-Nord in the Tours sector from 1 April 1942 to 1 December 1944. Post-war documentation records her rank as sergeant, as evidenced by a letter addressed to her by Charles de Gaulle on 1 September 1945. On 26 February 1946, she married Léo Bergoffen, who had survived Auschwitz, and the couple moved to Avrillé, where they had two children: Françoise and Jacques. In 1994, she was named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for her work to save Jewish children from Nazi authorities. On 31 December 2006, she was named a knight of the Legion of Honour. On 15 January 2025, she was promoted to Officer.
Bergoffen died on 6 January 2026, at the age of 101.
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