About the Museum

This museum is dedicated to the memory of the men and women of the immigrant workforce who, beginning in 1940, fought against the Nazi occupiers.

It is part of the essential work on history and remembrance undertaken by MRJ-M.O.I.

The Project

The Association for the Memory of Jewish Resistance Fighters from the Immigrant Labor Force (MRJ-MOI) was founded in 2005 by former resistance fighters to:

To raise awareness of the history of the Jewish Communist Resistance during the German Occupation—a history that was suppressed after the Liberation to preserve the “French national narrative.”

To show how these immigrants combined civil resistance with armed resistance, and how they organized solidarity efforts, particularly the rescue of children and adults condemned to extermination. Their participation in the national Resistance and the Liberation enabled them to integrate into the country they had chosen.

To show how Jews from Eastern Europe took a stand against fascism at a very early stage and fought against the Nazi occupiers and the Vichy government to defend France. Their unique struggle is part of the broader history of the Resistance in France.

A team

Editorial Board: Claudie Bassi-Lederman, Claudine Clair, Hélène Facy, Liliane Turkel, Maryse Wolikow

The notes, biographies, and narratives were created by MRJ-MOI

History Consultants: Jean-Marc Gayman, Alex Gromb, Serge Wolikow

The following individuals have joined the editorial board:

Notes written by: Jean Annequin, Georges Duffau, Bernard Frederick, Julien Hirsch, Monique Kreps, Danie Lederman, Françoise Lejeune, Bertrand de Quatrebarbes….
Translations: Edouard Goldszal, Julien Hirsch, Marianne Le Yaouanq, Armand Rafalovitch.
Organizational Charts: Thibault Walkowiak

Special thanks to the following for their careful review and advice: Zoe Grumberg, Jean Vigreux, Sylvie Zaidman, the Foundation for the Memory of the Deportation, and the Gabriel Péri Foundation.

Acknowledgments for Their Support

Paris City Hall, Île-de-France Regional Council, Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, SNCF, Baumann Foundation, Ms. Laurence Cohen, Senator from Val-de-Marne.

We would like to thank all the donors who supported the project and made it possible.

Special thanks to Alain Minc for his advice and careful review.

Documentation

We would like to thank everyone who granted us permission to use their photos and documents: the Musée de la Résistance Nationale (MRN) in Champigny, the Shoah Memorial, Agence Roger-Viollet, the Pandor Archives–Gabriel Péri Foundation, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, the Museum of Jewish Art and History (MAHJ), the Mont Valérien Memorial website, the Maitron Dictionary, Ciné-Archives, and Lobster Films.

Thank you to Claude Collin for granting us access to his documents; Daniel Grason for sharing his digitized copies of the Police Prefecture archives; Sylla Grinberg for granting us access to digital images of MRN documents; and Christian Langeois for his assistance in locating documents. Our thanks to Lorna Ashton for her warm welcome at the Digital-Gale Archives.

Thanks to everyone who provided documents from their family archives.

Some of the documents used in the museum’s exhibits come from the collection “The Anti-Racist Press Under the Nazi Occupation”: newspapers, leaflets, appeals, proclamations, and brochures published by Jewish Resistance organizations and various other movements during the Occupation of France from 1940 to 1944. This collection was published in 1950 by the UJRE Documentation Center, which was established at the time of the Liberation and directed by David Diamant. Other documents come from: “ The Voice of the Resistance Until Victory,” published in 1949, which compiles newspapers and leaflets in Yiddish, Most of the documents reproduced in these works are available at various archives where the David Diamant collections are held, notably at the Museum of the National Resistance (MRN) in Champigny-sur-Marne, the Shoah Memorial, and the Seine-Saint-Denis Departmental Archives.

Some of the video interviews are taken from the CHRD Lyon catalog; others are from the MRJ-MOI collection. We would like to thank Daniel Mandelbaum for his testimony. The videos were edited by the MRJ-MOI association with the assistance of Blaise Facy.

With our thanks

 National Library of France, Historical Library of the City of Paris, Lille Municipal Archives, Levallois Municipal Archives, Gurs Camp Archives, National Archives, Bundesarchiv, Imperial War Museums, Union of Jewish Volunteers and Veterans (UEVACJ), Loiret Departmental Archives, Jean Moulin Museum in Bordeaux, Bouches-du-Rhône Departmental Archives, Museum of Brittany, Drôme Departmental Archives, Seine-Saint-Denis Departmental Archives, La Contemporaine, SNCF Open Archives, Dordogne Departmental Archives, Lyon Center for History and the Resistance, Paris Museum of the Liberation—General Leclerc Museum—Jean Moulin Museum, Lot Departmental Archives, Paris City Archives, Savoie Departmental Archives, Var Departmental Archives, La Rochelle Museum of Art and History, RIAN Novosti, National Archives and Records Administration, Pas-de-Calais Departmental Archives, Cher Departmental Archives, McMaster University Archives, Bondues Resistance Museum, Cannes Municipal Archives, Paris Prefecture of Police Archives, Tours Municipal Archives, Amicale de Châteaubriant, Seine-et-Marne Departmental Archives, Carnavalet Museum, Puy-de-Dôme Departmental Archives, Haute-Garonne Departmental Museum of the Resistance and Deportation, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Compiègne Memorial, 11th Arrondissement Liberation Committee, Loir-et-Cher Departmental Archives, Alpes-Maritimes Departmental Archives, Archives of the Archdiocese of Toulouse, Lot-et-Garonne Departmental Archives, Archives of the Diocese of Montauban, Serge Klarsfeld Archives, M.R.A.P. Archives, Yad Vashem, Nicéphore Niepce Museum, Toulouse Municipal Archives, Haute-Vienne Departmental Archives, City of Bobigny, Marseille Municipal Archives, François Verdier Memorial, Isère Departmental Museum of the Resistance and Deportation, Museum of the Côte d’Azur Resistance, Historical Center for the Resistance in Drôme and Deportation, Tarn-et-Garonne Departmental Archives, Cantal Departmental Archives, Ain Museum of the Resistance and Deportation, Quimper Municipal Archives, Deux-Sèvres Conservatory of the Resistance and Deportation, U.S. Navy, Rhône Departmental Archives, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum