Marie Elisabeth Jean Elmes (5 May 1908 – 9 March 2002)[2] was an Irish aid worker credited with saving the lives of at least 200 Jewish children at various times during the Holocaust, by hiding them in the back of her car.

The school tried to keep any political turmoil out, with strict censorship - they did not, however, succeed, and Elmes, along with her peers, was exposed to the violence of the early 20th century from a young age.

[10] [14][15] Elmes experienced the war first hand in May 1915 when the Cunard ocean liner 'The Lusitania' was torpedoed by a German u-boat off the coast of Cork.

In 1928, Elmes enrolled at Trinity College Dublin, where she was elected a Scholar, and gained a First in Modern Literature (French and Spanish).

[8][9][3][18][19][12] In February 1937, Elmes gave up her aspiring career in academia to volunteer and help refugees escaping the Spanish Civil War and after the completion of her studies, she joined the University of London Ambulance Unit and was sent to a children's hospital in Almeria, Spain, where she was assigned to a feeding station.

[16] She was appointed in January 1939 by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) (a Quaker humanitarian organisation) to run a hospital they were establishing in Alicante.

[15] It is estimated that Elmes along with her Quaker colleagues provided food to over 84,000 children in schools facing famine conditions in Southern France.

[25] In 1942, the Vichy authorities made it clear that Jewish children were not legally allowed to be exempt from being sent to the concentration camps, as they had been.

[1][2][27][28] In January[29] (or February[4]) 1943, Elmes was arrested on suspicion of aiding the escape of Jews[29] and was imprisoned in Toulouse,[4] later being moved to Fresnes Prison run by the Gestapo near Paris, where she spent six months.

[26][15] Mary's family hoped that after her ordeal she would leave France but she was determined not to abandon the refugees who still needed her help.