Humanitarian organizations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and local religious leaders had a priority of hiding children to protect them from deportation to Nazi concentration camps.

In 1990 the town was one of two collectively honoured as the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Israel for saving Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Among the tourists were children brought to Chambon from polluted industrial cities for their health and wealthy Protestants who built summer homes.

Tourism declined during World War II and the existence of these unused facilities, the familiarity of the residents with outsiders, and the town's history as a refuge against repression contributed to the welcome Chambon and its region gave refugees.

[7] The influx of refugees into Chambon and the Haute Loire department began in the 1930s with the coming of power of the Nazis in Germany in 1933 and the defeat of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War in 1939.

Chalmers and Trocmé agreed to establish homes for refugee children utilizing the now-vacant tourist hotels in Chambon.

Former mayor Charles Guillon was well-connected and helped Strong and the YMCA open one of the children's home at the Maison des Roches in October 1941.

Most of the time the French authorities and the German commander in the region chose to ignore the existence of Jewish refugees and anti-Nazi resistors in Chambon.

A teacher said, "Nobody talked about what was going on in Le Chambon...I did not know at all that a colleague with a strong accent who taught Latin and Greek was a rabbi" A pastor said, "we never really discussed refugees...we also never told parishioners that they were hosting Jews, who had become 'non-Jews' with their new identification papers...if they were hiding someone and were caught, they could always sincerely say, 'I did not know he was Jewish.

'"[24] Because of the secrecy involved, estimates of the number of Jews rescued in the Chambon region vary widely up to 5,000, counting those who passed through, resided temporarily, or continued onwards to Switzerland.

[26][27] The ethos and practice of sheltering refugees continues, with migrants coming from many war zones, including Congo, Libya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Kosovo and Chechnya.

[35] The town of Chambon-sur-Lignon was home to Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International, a private boarding school founded in 1938 by local Protestant ministers André Trocmé and Edouard Theis.

[38] The town also appears in the last book French author Romain Gary published before his death, The Kites, and recounts the bravery of its inhabitants in the face of danger.