November 19,1988: Alter Mojze Goldman and the French Resistance

The French Legion of Honor admitted Alter Mojze Goldman on this date in 1988, in recognition of his role in the French Resistance in the south of France during World War II. Goldman was a Polish Jew who had sought a home, during the rise of fascism, in France, Germany, and Spain. In 1939 he joined the French military and was a decorated soldier. Once discharged, he joined the communist-oriented FTP-MOI partisan movement and served as an urban saboteur. Goldman became the father of the French singer-songwriter star, Jean-Jacques Goldman, and another successful songwriter, Robert Goldman, as well as Pierre Goldman, a leftwing activist, writer, robber, and assassin who was himself assassinated in 1979. Alter Goldman died at age 79, one month after his induction into the Legion d’Honneur.

“I was charged with military work and the organization of combat groups. It was in this way that I met the woman who was to be Pierre’s mother. She was the organization’s secretary for the region of Lyon. She was a militant. After the liberation she was called ‘The Jewish Passionaria.’ 1944 was a terrible and difficult year in Lyon. There were attacks every day. For every one of us death could arrive at any moment. She said, ‘I want to have a child.’ And when she became pregnant she said ‘I want to have this child no matter what.’ What reason could there be for such conduct? To be sure, there was in her the conviction of fighting in this way against the death that threatened all of us at that time. But in my opinion there was also the fact that this militant, who had always lived the life of a militant, wanted to be a woman in all meanings of the term.” —Alter Goldman