Cécile the Deer

   Cécile Cerf was born on January 12, 1916, in Vilna, Lithuania (under Russian administration), which became Wilno in 1920 under Polish rule. Cécile was the eldest daughter of Moshe Shalit, co-founder of YIVO and president of the Association of Yiddish Writers and Journalists. From a very young age, she participated in revolutionary activities against the Polish military dictatorship.

   In 1932, she continued her studies in Paris. She dropped out of school out of political conviction to experience the life of a working-class person. In 1934, she married Marcel Cerf, a socially conscious photographer and future historian of the Paris Commune of 1871, and became a French citizen. On February 6, she stood up to the fascist rioters.

   In 1940, her husband was taken prisoner in Germany. In December 1942, Cécile Cerf joined the ranks of the Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTPF). She became involved in rescuing Jewish children, finding shelter for armed fighters, and supplying combat units. She helped transport weapons and equipment, which contributed to the success of several operations against enemy troops.

   In 1943, it was one of the names used in the second, deadly large-scale operation to track down Resistance members—known as M.O.I.—carried out by the Vichy police’s Special Brigades.

She joined the leadership of the underground organization “Solidarity.”

   From August 1943 through May 1944, Cécile Cerf served as an FTP-M.O.I. officer with the Resistance in the Northern Zone. Her mission was to expand Resistance activities among women in all immigrant communities.

She set up a clandestine printing press in Châtenay-Malabry, transporting the stencils needed to print the leaflets by bicycle.

   Starting in May 1944, Cécile Cerf was appointed head of the FTP-M.O.I. within the Resistance in the Northern Zone, tasked with establishing the Patriotic Militias. She was also responsible for overseeing the maquis.

   After the Liberation, Cécile Cerf co-founded the Commission Centrale de l’Enfance (CCE), of which she became one of the leaders. She was the first administrator of the postwar newspaper *Droit et Liberté*, editorial secretary of the Yiddish-language daily *Naïe Presse*, co-director of the UJRE Jewish Cultural Center, and director of the *Renouveau* bookstore. She co-organized a tribute to the writer Sholem Aleichem at the Sorbonne and UNESCO.

   For the *Presse Nouvelle Hebdomadaire* (PNH), she translates numerous texts by other Yiddish-language authors into French.

She worked to promote dialogue among cultures and to defend the oppressed, regardless of their origin, in the spirit of the Resistance, until her death in Paris on December 29, 1973.