George Rodocanachi

George Rodocanachi (1875-1944) was a British-born physician of Greek descent who helped Allied escapees and Jewish refugees in the Vichy France.

George Rodocanachi was born February 27 1875 in Liverpool, England, to a Greek family. He studied in Marseille, received his medical degree in Paris in 1903 and opened his pediatric practice in Marseille. 1907 he married Fanny Vlasto in London and they settled in Marseille. Their only child Constantine was born 1908.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Rodocanachi was working in a children's hospital in Marseille. In 1915 he gained French citizenship and joined the French Alpine troops. He served in Alsace and Somme, was once gassed and twice wounded and received Croix-de-Guerre and Legion d'Honneur. After the war he returned to his practice.

During the World War II, after Vichy France had accepted armistice with Nazi Germany, Rodocanachi took contact with the British Sailor's Mission in Marseille and treated British soldiers who had missed the evacuation in Dunkirk. When the mission was closed by the Milice, he met Elizabeth Haydon-Guest and begun to work with her to hide escapees and Jewish refugees. When Ian Garrow founded the Pat line escape network, Rodocanachi's home in Marseille became one of the main safe houses of the network. Garrow also stayed there until Gestapo captured him in 1941.

With the help of his wife and couple of associates, Rodocanachi helped numerous people, many of them downed Allied airmen. He hid them in his house and arranged false identity papers until they could be helped to escape either through the Pyrenees or a Royal Navy submarine.

Rodocanachi also helped fleeing Jews that were shipped to USA through the US Embassy. US consulate named him examining doctor for the Jewish immigrants. He used his position to provide medical certificates to fleeing Jews to justify their immigration to USA.

Rodocanachi was also nominated for the medical board of the Michel-Lévy Hospital. The board made medical examinations to determine whether prisoners of war would be unfit for military service and hence could be repatriated. Rodonacachi made his best to have as many men as possible to be declared unfit. The board stopped to function when Germans occupied rest of the France.

The secret work took its toll and his angina pectoris got worse over the years.

Eventually the Pat Line was betrayed. February 25 1943 six Gestapo men came to arrest Rodocanachi in his home. His wife later suspected that the house concierges had notified the Germans. Rodocanachi persisted of treating the other inmates in prison. On December 17 1943 Rodocanachi was moved to prison in Compiègne and on January 17 1944 he was transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp. He died there in the spring on 1944.