Jean Jérome

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Jean Jérome (born Michał - French: Mikhaël or Michel - Feintuch, took the pseudonym in 1940; 1906—1990) was a Polish Jew-French communist activist and Resistance member.

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[edit] Biography

Born in Galicia (part of Austria-Hungary) as one of the seven children of a vender, he received a religious education in local yeshivot, and spoke both Hebrew and Yiddish. He started work in menial jobs at a very young age, and became a communist after Galicia was taken over by Poland at the end of World War I. Feintuch attended meetings of the newly-formed and clandestine Communist Party of Poland at the age of sixteen, and joined a trade union. After two successive arrests, he could no longer find employment, and ultimately fled Poland in order to ellude military service.

He lived in Belgium after 1927, working in a steel plant (he also attended lectures at the University of Liège sometime around that year). His political activities got him expelled, and illegally crossed into France, working as an electrician in a telephone factory, becoming active in the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT-F) and the Polish mission of the Main-d'œuvre étrangère (Foreign Employees) to the Central Committee of the French Communist Party (PCF). In 1931, he was deported to Belgium - only to return illegally and become active in the Paris region, remaining a clandestine for the following years.

Feintuch became an important internal connection for the Comintern and Profintern; he established contacts with the Comintern envoy to France, Eugen Fried, and was one in the Party section charged with sending weapuns and supplies to the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. After the crushing of the Spanish Popular Front in 1939, Mikhaël Feintuch and the section were directed towards organizing the transit of tens of thousands of former fighters and other refugees into France, while very likely engaging in the trafficking of jewels and gold.

In June 1940, his central position in the Party was confirmed by Jacques Duclos. The newly-named Jérome became the official supplier of paper and printing material to the Party's illegal press (outlawed after the PCF had outraged public opinion and authorities by condoning the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). Philippe Robrieux argued that Jérome also replaced Giulio Ceretti, the man charged with obtaining illegal funds for the Comintern (Ceretti and Maurice Thorez had since been recalled to Moscow).

During the World War II German occupation of France begun in the same month, he also became charged with contacting other elements in the Resistance, intellectuals as well as the Free French Forces of General Charles de Gaulle. He was subject to an arrest in 1943, an incident still wrapped in mystery. It was speculated that his activities brought the downfall of other communist Franc Tireurs, the group pictured in the Affiche Rouge and led by Missak Manouchian. Still, Jean Jérome was since awarded numerous distinctions for his participation in the underground movement - the Médaille de la Résistance, the Croix de guerre, and the Légion d'honneur. The biographical profiles he himself submitted to PCF sources are very succinct.

According to Philippe Robrieux, Jean Jérome has acted as fundraiser for the PCF up until the 1970s, through his known business ventures in the People's Republic of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

[edit] Autobiographical works

  • La Part des Hommes, Acropole, 1983
  • Les Clandestins (1940-44), Acropole, 1986

[edit] References

  • R. Lemarquis, J. Maitron, Cl. Pennetier, Dictionnaire Biographique du Mouvement Ouvrier Français, Editions Ouvrières/Editions de l'Atelier
  • Dictionnaire biographique de l'Internationale communiste, Editions de l'Atelier
  • Philippe Robrieux, Histoire Intérieure du Parti Communiste, 4 volumes (1920-45), Fayard, 1980-84.
  • Emmanuel de Chambost, La direction du PCF dans la clandestinité (1941-44), L'Harmattan, 1997

[edit] External links

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