Jacques Decour

Jacques Decour's tomb at Montmartre Cemetery in Paris.

Jacques Decour, real name Daniel Decourdemanche, born 21 February 1910 in Paris, died 30 May 1942 in Fort Mont-Valérien, was a French writer and resistant, killed by the Nazis.

Biography

Jacques Decour studied at the Lycée Carnot in Paris and the Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He began his studies in law, but, after a few years changed his orientation and studied German literature and obtained his degree in this topic.

In 1932, he was named professor of French in Prussia at a school in Magdeburg. There, he wrote his first book, Philisterburg, which described the risks of nationalism and the "inadmissible myth of race". This book caused scandal in France, and public opinion refused to take account of the menacing signs coming from Germany.

He then moved to a school in Reims and joined the French young Communist movement. He then moved to Tours and joined the Communist Party.

In 1937, he became professor of German in Paris at the lycée Rollin (the school which, after Liberation, would become the lycée Jacques-Decour in his honour). Due to demobilisation, he joined the resistance and created the magazines L'université libre in 1940 and La Pensée libre in 1941 which became the most important publications in occupied France.

In 1941, Decour became responsible for the Comité national des écrivains which published a new magazine the Lettres françaises but never got to see it, due to his arrest by the French police on 17 February 1942. Taken by the Germans, he was killed on 30 May 1942, one week after Georges Politzer and Solomon. In the prison where he was waiting for his execution, he wrote a touching letter to his family. It was a letter saying goodbye to those he loved. Resigned to his forthcoming death, he expressed the confidence of his youth, and hoped that his sacrifice would not have been in vain.

Publications

References

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