French YCW chaplain named ‘Righteous among the nations’
French YCW chaplain, Fr Robert Crespin (1895-1961) was posthumously named “Righteous among the nations” for his role in saving several Jewish families from deportation during World War II.
More than sixty years after his death, Fr Crespin was awarded this medal on Thursday 12 June 2025 for his dedication and courage.
It is the highest civilian distinction in the State of Israel and has been awarded to approximately 4,300 French citizens since 1963.
Fr Crespin, who was parish priest of Châlette-sur-Loing in the Loiret department saved five Jews from deportation.
They included a nine-month-old baby, Ami Levinsky, who was rounded up in 1942 at the same time as his mother and, shortly after, his father. Both were interned at the Beaune-la-Rolande camp, according to La République.
Fr Crespin managed to retrieve the little boy before entrusting him to a friend of his parents, Madame Gorkin, in Châlette-sur-Loing. However, she was in turn arrested in 1944, and Fr Crespin again did everything he could to save the child.
“I asked a doctor for a certificate to confirm that he [Ami Levinsky] was being given insulin injections. A Gestapo officer gave me permission to go and collect Ami from prison so that I could take responsibility for him,” the priest wrote in a letter.
In February 1944, Father Crespin sent someone to warn the mother of a resident named Amold Kremenstein that the Germans were about to arrest them. The local postmistress, Suzanne Dress, hid them in a house in Clémont-sur-Sauldr where they remained until the Liberation.
A final round up took place on 23 February, 1944, a final raid took place. Fr Crespin learned of it as he finishing celebrating mass. He immediately sent word to a woman whose husband had been kidnapped in June 1942, and who was left with three children, advising her to leave her house immediately and take refuge at the home of another person who lived in a secluded area.
After Fr Crespin’s death in 1961, an obituary in a local newspaper recorded that “No one in Châlette has forgotten this priest with the tired cassock, who carried in his arms Jewish children hunted by the Gestapo, sheltered them in his presbytery and hid them among devoted communities.”
Fr Crespin was baptised at the age of eight and he became aware of his priestly vocation from the age of thirteen.
Ordained in 1918, he initiated the YCW in the Loiret department. At the end of 1938, he was appointed parish priest of Châlette-sur-Loing, and shortly after the start of the war, Father Crespin distinguished himself through his unwavering devotion to the town’s inhabitants.
“For several months, many French prisoners were able to escape, including a certain number, thanks to the stratagems of Father Crespin,” a report from the Diocese of Orleans says, adding that “thousands of people were able to benefit from the advice, help, and spiritual direction of this father and guide, Father Robert Crespin.”
He died on 30 June, 1961, and is buried in the Montargis cemetery.
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L’abbé Crespin, prêtre du Loiret, devient “Juste parmi les nations” (Aleteia)