Jacques Helbronner

Jacques Helbronner (1873-1943) was a French jurist, civil servant and Jewish official. He served as the president of the Israelite Central Consistory of France from 1940 to 1943. He was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was murdered in a gas chamber by the Nazis.

Jacques Helbronner
Born
Jacques, Edouard Helbronner

21 September 1873
Paris, France
Died23 November 1943 (1943-11-24) (aged 70)
Auschwitz-Birkenau, German-occupied Poland
Cause of deathgas chamber
OccupationJurist, civil servant
Parent(s)Horace Helbronner
Hermance Saint-Paul

Early life

Jacques Helbronner was born on 21 September 1873 in Paris, France.[1] His father, Horace Helbronner, was a lawyer.[1] His mother, Hermance Saint-Paul, was a housewife.[1]

Helbronner graduated from Sciences Po.[1] He received a Doctorate in Law.[1] He did his military service from 1894 to 1895.[1]

Career

Helbronner was a lawyer at the Court of Appeal of Paris from 1895 to 1898.[1] He subsequently worked as a civil servant for the Conseil d'État.[1] He became a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1925.[1]

Helbronner served as the president of the Israelite Central Consistory of France from 1940 to 1943.[2] He was a supporter of Marshal Philippe Pétain, who told him he had been pressured by the German invaders into passing antisemitic laws.[3] Similarly, Xavier Vallat told Helbronner he would change those laws and spare 95 percent of French Jews.[4] Historian Jacques Adler has argued Helbronner was misled by the Vichy government.[4] Meanwhile, in 1941, Helbronner accepted a leadership position in the Union générale des israélites de France (UGIF, General Organization of Jews in France), even though he was initially opposed to its establishment.[5]

Death

Helbronner was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943,[6] where he was murdered in a gas chamber by the Nazis.[7]

References
  1. "Helbronner, Jacques, Edouard". Legifrance. Retrieved June 22, 2016.
  2. Dray-Bensousan, Dray-Bensousan (2002). "L'éducation juive à Marseille sous Vichy (1940-1943) : une renaissance circonstancielle". Archives Juives. 2 (35): 46–59. doi:10.3917/aj.352.0046. Retrieved June 22, 2016 – via Cairn.info.
  3. Poznanski, Renée (2001). Jews in France During World War II. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England. p. 77. ISBN 9780874518962.
  4. Adler, Jacques (1987). The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution: Communal Response and Internal Conflicts, 1940-1944. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 84. ISBN 9780195043051. OCLC 15016501. Jacques Helbronner.
  5. Henry, Patrick, ed. (2014). Jewish Resistance Against the Nazis. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. p. 88. ISBN 9780813225890. OCLC 861497294.
  6. Curtis, Michael (2002). Verdict on Vichy: Power and Prejudice in the Vichy France Regime. New York: Arcade Publishing. p. 24. ISBN 9781559706896. OCLC 51389154.
  7. Jablonka, Ivan (2016). A History of the Grandparents I Never Had. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 112. ISBN 9780804795449. OCLC 926623513.
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