Lucien Lazare, a Jewish Resistance fighter who helped drive Nazi forces out of southern France and became a leading Holocaust historian, has died in Jerusalem aged 101.
Lazare, who died on September 22, was a member of the Jewish unit known as the Marc Haguenau company, which fought alongside the wider French Resistance in 1944.
He later became an educator, author and long-serving member of Yad Vashem’s commission recognising non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
Born in Strasbourg in November 1924, Lazare grew up in Alsace. His life changed dramatically after France’s defeat by Nazi Germany in 1940 and the introduction of antisemitic legislation by the collaborationist Vichy regime.
“All of a sudden, we Jews were outside the law, excluded from society,” he later wrote in his 2015 memoir.
His family fled to Lyon, where he joined the Éclaireurs Israélites de France, a Jewish scouting organisation that developed an underground network to protect Jews from persecution.
Using false identities and forged documents, Lazare helped the network’s clandestine operations and assisted in moving Jewish children to safety as their parents were arrested and deported.
In his memoir, Le Tapissier de Jérusalem, published in 2015, he recalled escorting groups of children across southern France by train, passing them from one rescuer to another at successive stops.
In 1944, he travelled into the French countryside to join the Marc Haguenau company, a predominantly Jewish Resistance unit operating in the Vabre area. The group received supplies parachuted in by Allied aircraft, fought German forces and participated in the liberation of Castres in August 1944.
Lazare later recalled the moment German soldiers surrendered following an ambush.
“There were 60 of them, lined up in the field, their hands in the air, their uniforms bloodstained, trembling like leaves,” he wrote.
He described marching triumphantly in front of the prisoners and shouting: “I am a Jew!”
He wrote of experiencing “an immense joy”, describing how the encounter between the heavily armed German soldier and the defenceless Jew had been “radically reversed”.
The unit subsequently joined the French Army under General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, taking part in fighting in eastern France, including the Vosges Mountains and the liberation of Alsace.
After the war, Lazare studied history and geography at the University of Lyon, eventually earning a doctorate from the University of Strasbourg. He taught in France and Belgium and served as secretary-general of Strasbourg’s Jewish community before emigrating to Israel with his wife, Janine Hemmendinger, and their four children in 1968.
In Jerusalem, he founded the René Cassin secondary school in 1970 and became its first principal.
Alongside his educational career, Lazare devoted himself to researching the history of French Jewry during the Holocaust. His books documented the Jewish underground, the role of resistance networks and the actions of those who helped Jews survive Nazi persecution.
In 1987, he joined Yad Vashem’s commission for the recognition of the Righteous Among the Nations. He later chaired its Jerusalem sub-commission, helping preserve the stories of people who had risked their lives to rescue Jews.
Yad Vashem paid tribute to his dedication to Holocaust research and remembrance, describing his death as a significant loss to the institution and the wider field.
In an interview marking his centenary, he was asked what he wished to pass on to future generations. His answer was simple: “Banish hatred.”
Lazare’s wife died in 2017. He is survived by two sons, two daughters, 20 grandchildren and around 50 great-grandchildren.
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