Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac

Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac (born 22 January 1917 at Colombes, died 8 April 2015 in Paris) was a member of the Free French Forces in World War II and the France Libre organization based in London. Later he served as a civil servant and became known as an historian.^[1] During WWII he directed the Free French propaganda radio broadcasts to Europe.^[2] After the war he helped create France's state-owned publishing house, La Documentation Française.^[2]

Early life

Crémieux was born to a middle class Jewish family in the Colombes suburb of Paris. His political awareness was raised in high school by his uncle Benjamin Crémieux (1888-1944), a literay critic, and through him Crémieux met and was influenced by the anti-authoritarian surrealism of André Malraux and the liberal internationalism of Stefan Zweig. He graduated from the Lycée Condorcet in 1933. But it was first during a school vacation in 1931 that he visited Germany and in subsequent trips saw first-hand the work of the National Socialist Party. In 1935 he joined, and became the youngest member of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes (CVIA) which spearheaded the unification of left-wing politics in France.^[3]

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