Jeanne blum
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Léon Blum
"The most concise of the authoritative biographies...It also makes clearer than the others how fully Blum assumed his Jewish identity, though in a rationalist, universalist, and civic form that was essentially secular. Finally, Birnbaum's biography is the most personal so far."—Robert O. Paxton, New York Review of Books
"Brief, eloquent, and beautifully translated . . . A valuable introduction and guide to one of the most important, if overlooked, figures in the history of modern France and, indeed, modern Europe."—James McAuley and Patrice Higonnet, New Republic
"[Blum's] importance for an understanding of modern France is lucidly summarized in Pierre Birnbaum’s Léon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist."—Frederick Brown, Wall Street Journal
“Birbaum has drawn a sharp portrait that centres on Blum’s Jewishness… It is indeed timely that the Yale Jewish Lives series should have commissioned this wonderful, readable book, with the impressive Arthur Goldhammer re
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Léon Blum a man of the past, of the present, of the future. Last June he resigned as Premier of the Popular Front Government, but his personal prestige as the most influential political figure that France has known since Briand remains unimpaired.
He now occupies the position of Vice President in the Chautemps Popular Front Cabinet, exerting the same active influence as he did when he first came to power over a year ago. He must be reckoned with as one of the few statesmen who direct the course of world affairs to day
M. Blum's year in power has been morally healthy for France. It has restored the mental balance of a great many people who were beginning to believe that, because a few nations had gone mad, there was no other solution than to follow their example.
Léon Blum is an idealist and a logician, a poet and a critic, a diplomat and a revolutionary, a politician and a gentleman. He is a Frenchman and a Jew. Complex, subtle, eclectic, he presents a problem which baffles his admirers as much as it irritates his enemies, It is difficult to place him in any category o
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Léon Blum
Under the Vichy government, Blum was interned and in the Riom trial he was charged with being the key person responsible for France’s entry into the war: his skilled defence became legendary. From the end of March 1943 to April 1945 he was interned, along with Georges Mandel, by the SS in Buchenwald’s outside the inmates’ camp. With his secretary Jeanne Levylier, whom he married during his internment, Blum was transported to a camp in Southern Germany, where they were kept until late April 1945 when they were freed by the Americans.
In the winter of 1945, the socialist Blum was sent as a special envoy of France to Washington. In November 1946, he was the chairman of UNESCO’s programme committee. After Charles de Gaulle’s resignation, Léon Blum established the interim cabinet. In the last year of his life, the statesman and essayist championed a humanistic socialism with a European perspective.
Léon Blum died near Versailles on 30 March 1950.
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