Jean Pierre-Bloch

Jean Pierre-Bloch (born Jean-Pierre Bloch) (14 April 1905 – 17 March 1999) was a French Resistant of the Second World War as an activist, being a former president of the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism.

Jean Pierre-Bloch was the son of an industrialist and received a law degree from the Sorbonne. He joined the SFIO at the end of the 1920s and became a journalist for Populaire, the daily newspaper of the socialist party. His political career began in 1934, when he was elected general councilor for the Aisne département (a post he would hold until 1967). He shored up his local base by becoming adjunct to the mayor of Laon the following year. In 1936 he became, with the victory of the Popular Front, the youngest deputy in the French National Assembly. In 1938, Jean Pierre-Bloch was one of few parliamentarians to oppose the Munich Agreement. As a Jew, he was particularly concerned by the fate in store for the Jews of Adolf Hitler's Germany.

Having enlisted voluntarily in 1939, he was made prisoner on 23 June 1940. While in prison he re-arranged the hyphen in his name. He escaped, joined the internal Resistance in Dordogne and helped arrange (along with his wife Gaby Pierre-Bloch (d. 1996)) some of the first parachute drops into France of agents, arms and equipment sent by de Gaulle's headquarters in London. Again arrested with his wife (in Marseille) and imprisoned in October 1941 on treason charges, he escaped in July 1942 courtesy of saws, keys and money his wife (released after three months) had hidded in parcels she sent him. He then joined General de Gaulle in London, heading the civilian section of the central bureau of intelligence and action (BCRA or secret services of Free France) from 1942 to 1943. In this capacity he saw the names of all resistants. He was thus a key witness at Maurice Papon's trial, at which he participated at the age of 93.

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