Élise Rivet
19.01.1890-30.03.1945

A brief biography.

Élise Rivet, O.P. was born in Draria, Algeria, 19th January 1890 the daughter of a French navy officer. At the age of twenty she  moved to France, entered the Dominican congregation of Notre-Dame de la Compassion, at Lyon, 3rd Decembre 1912, and received the name Elisabeth de l’ Eucharistie on 30th May 1913. She was elected Mère Superieure 20th March 1933.
 

During the war (1940-1945) she participated in the Mouvements Unis de Résistance (MUR) and l’Armée Secrète, and hid their archives and material inside the monastery. She sheltered Jews and a British soldier and gave them identity papers. On 25th March 1944 Elise Rivet was arrested with her assistant Sister Mary Jésus, brought to the Gestapo in the rue Berthelot, Lyon, and was for three months imprisoned in Montluc.
 

There she met Andrée Rivière: " C'est au réfectoire que je vis pour la première fois Mère Elisabeth dont la personnalité et le rayonnement remontaient les plus déprimées. Elle accueillait les nouvelles pensionnaires avec son sourire calme qui nous réconfortait après le choc de l'arrestation et de la prison. Toutes rassemblées auprès de notre Mère, comme nous l'appelions, nous ressentions une sécurité, un soutien moral, une lueur d'espoir surnaturelle et pensions que plus rien ne pouvait nous arriver."  Andrée Rivière-Paysan.

On 1st July 1944 she was transported to Romainville, than 14th July to Sarrebrück and 24th July to the destruction camp at Ravensbrück.

There, stripped of her religious garments, she was forced into hard labor.

With the end of the War in sight, the Germans began a massive amount of killings in the gas chamber

Andrée Rivière-Paysan, together with Elise Rivet deported to Ravensbrück, testified to Rivet’s  nobility:
"Soeur Elisabeth était l'âme du camp. Dans cet univers de folie meurtrière, elle a été un pôle de sérénité et d'espérance, de présence aimante auprès de ses compagnes."

To save the life of a mother, - she took her place -, she went to the gas-chamber with the words: Let we go together; I will help you to die in peace.
She was murdered 30th March, Good Friday, 1945.

On 10th November 1945  she received posthumously 'La Croix de Guerre avec étoile', with the citation: « Élise Rivet, agent de renseignements en territoire occupé, outre des services rendus aux Services spéciaux, avait eu de fréquentes relations avec l’armée secrète, cachant des armes et donnant asile aux gens poursuivis comme étant en infraction avec les lois raciales ou avec le service obligatoire du travail ». 

In 1961 she received the 'Médaille de la Résistance'.

The city of Lyon named a street after her on 2nd December 1979.
She is honoured with the medal of the Justes on 17th April 1997.

In 1999 a room of the l’Institut lyonnais des sciences de l’Homme is named after her.

Philately

Élise Rivet, the dominican sister Elisabeth of the Eucharistie,
born in Draria, Algeria, 19th January 1890, and murdered in the
gaschamber of Ravensbrück on Good Friday, 30th March 1945.
She took the place of a mother.

France 1962, Mi 1345, Sc 993.

Elise Rivet is honoured after her death
with the Médaille de la Résistance.

France 1962, Mi 1345, Sc 993. FDC

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