It was a neighboring farmer of German descent who betrayed the safe house. He had hired a teen-age boy from the children's home, somehow found out that the children were Jewish, then apparently passed the information to German troops garrisoned in a nearby town.

On April 6, 1944, as the children were having breakfast, German trucks rolled up in front of the farmhouse. Mrs. Zlatin was away at the time, arranging for another batch of children to be smuggled to Switzerland. But 7 teachers and 44 children between the ages of 4 and 17 were arrested. Only an assistant to Mrs. Zlatin escaped, managing to squeeze through an upstairs window and hide in the garden.

The rest, including Mrs. Zlatin's husband, were herded into the trucks. Witnesses told of the children being kicked and hurled into the trucks like sacks of potatoes.

Mr. Barbie commanded his officers to transport the captives to deportation centers. As they rode along, jounced about in the back of the trucks, the 44 children sang a song declaring their defiance. They had learned it from their history lessons: ''Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine'' (You will not have Alsace and Lorraine).

Mrs. Zlatin learned of the roundup via a telegram that said: ''Family ill. Contagious disease.'' Those were the code words that meant the worst: the Nazis had arrived at Izieu.

At once, Mrs. Zlatin hurried to Vichy to beg for the lives of the children before the collaborationist French government. She was spurned. ''Why do you bother about those dirty Jews?'' a senior French official asked her.

Five of the adults and 42 of the children died in gas chambers at Auschwitz. Mr. Zlatin and the two remaining children were executed by firing squad in Estonia. A single adult, a 25-year-old teacher, managed to survive.