Laure Schnapper, Pierre-André Meyer
A family of musicians and soldiers of Lorraine origin: the «Isaac-Marx» in the 19th century
t is a “dynasty” that descends from Marx Isaac, born in the middle of the 18th century, a musician who hosted balls and religious festivals in the Lorraine countryside. His eldest son, Lion (1789-1844), a music teacher who had come to Paris, enrolled his sons at the Conservatoire, preparing them for careers as cellists or conductors of balls. The second, Elias (1791-1866), trumpeter and then bandmaster in the artillery, placed his sons as soldiers’ children, preparing them for a military career. But if the musical vocation was passed on to the following generations (one of Lion’s granddaughters, who also went to the Conservatoire, had a career as an international pianist), the same was not true for the military vocation. Through these two very different parts of the same family, we can observe the role played by two institutions, the Conservatoire de musique and the Army, in the integration of French Jews in the 19th century.
Catherine Lévy
Jane Lemant-Lévy or “Straw stings”
Born in 1868 into a family of industrialists in Lorraine, Jane married Lucien Lévy, an engineer officer and polytechnician. They lived in several garrison towns. Lucien went to the Salonika front in 1917. In 1940, Jane had a son Pierre, who was demobilized and arrested during the “roundup of notables”. Two other sons who lived with her, were taken prisoner in Oflags. In 1942, Jane panicked, left with her daughter-in-law and her little daughter. They are “sold” by their smuggler in Autun. They did not return from Auschwitz.
Marie-Anne Guez
Defending France from the Air: The Journey of Jewish Airmen from Tunisia in the Two World Wars
At the beginning of the 20th century, about 70,000 Jews lived within the French Protectorate, established in Tunisia in 1881, most of them of Tunisian nationality. In Islamic lands, they do not have access to the army. If they wanted to fight in the French army, they had to enlist voluntarily: this is what several hundred of them did during the First and Second World Wars. The careers of these men are all exceptional, but some of them show an even more striking intrepidity: the aviators. This article presents some of these volunteer enlisted men in the air force who fought for France in the two world wars of the 20th century.