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Recensement des Juifs – le cas de Maître TUBIANA, Vichy – Alger – Constantine, Septembre 1941 à Juin 1942

Date:

19.09.1941

Archive:

Aix-en-Provence

Folder Number:

AEP_93_3G_5-6_0376-0390

Description

September 19 and October 15, 1941 – The Commissioner General for Jewish Questions at the Ministry of the Interior, Xavier VALLAT, wrote twice to the Prefect of Constantine and took up the case of Mr. Marcel TUBIANA, lawyer in Bône, to urgently inform him to know if he was registered as well as his two children.

February 5, 1942 – Marcel TUBIANA, Barrister at the Bar, writes a long letter to the Mayor of Bône which looks more like a plea from a lawyer to a court, in order to explain why his two children should not be considered as Jews in with regard to the law and therefore not be listed. He mentions “the essential interest which attaches to this question for their future” and interprets from a legal aspect the letter of the laws of October 3, 1940 and June 2, 1941. He explains having married in 1939 the daughter of a French officer, Catholic, and his daughter born in February 1940 while he was mobilized. It was only on his return that he and his wife decided that their children “would receive Catholic baptism or not receive any religious education”. He pleads that he himself did not receive any religious education, and specifies that “the first school to which my brothers and I were sent was held by the sisters of the Christian Doctrine, so that from a young age the Catholic religion has been more familiar and better known to us than the Jewish religion. This is how several months went by without my daughter, then my son, born in February 1941, having been baptized. They have been baptized on June 14, 1941 […]. I add that my children, having received Catholic baptism, are and will be brought up in the Catholic religion”. Mr. TUBIANA continues his demonstration, arguing on the legal level, and interpreting the spirit of the law : according to him his children are Catholics, and he asks the Authority to reconsider its position. He concludes : “It will not be, I think, in nobody’s power to prevent me from making my children to be good French, no matter what. My essential desire is that they can also be, without restriction, good servants of the Country “. Finally, he asks for “the name and position of the person who was interested in my young children …” to be communicated to him.

February 11, 1942 – The Governor General of Algeria asks the Prefect of Constantine to “send him as a matter of extreme urgency […] the census declarations prescribed by law that Mr. Marcel TUBIANA had to subscribe for his children and invite Mr. the Mayor of BONE to make known the reasons for the delay in following up on this affair ”.

April 2, 1942 – The Commissioner General for Jewish Questions Xavier VALLAT writes to the Governor General of Algeria : “It is understood that his son who was not born on June 25, 1940 should not be counted, not being considered as a Jew. As for his daughter, as it had not been done in her name for adherence to a religion other than the Jewish religion before June 25, 1940, she must be considered Jewish and her father should have had her registered. Its abstention constitutes a breach of the law of June 2, 1941 prescribing the census of Jews. This breach is all the more serious as it was committed by a lawyer and must be punished”.

April 20, 1942 – The Governor General of Algeria writes to the Prefect of Constantine that he has been informed by the Commissioner General for Jewish Questions “that if the son of Mr. TUBIANA Marcel, former lawyer of the Bar of Bône, should not to be considered Jewish, on the other hand his daughter born in February 1940 and who was not baptized before June 25 of the same year, is Jewish under the law of June 2. His father should therefore have signed a census declaration in her name and Mr. Xavier VALLAT ordered that his abstention be sanctioned”. He asks him to “invite Me Tubiana to urgently draw up a census form in the name of his daughter”, to send it to him, and “to follow up on the sanctions envisaged by the Central Power”.

May 19, 1942 – The Prefect of Constantine writes to the Prosecutor of the French State, BONE to advise him of the “breach” of Mr. TUBIANA “for the purposes of prosecution, begging you to keep me informed in due course of the judicial decision which will intervene against Mr. TUBIANA ”.

June 3, 1942 – The Public Prosecutor at the Court of First Instance of Bône writes to the Prefect of Constantine attaching “a statement by Mr. TUBIANA, in which the latter makes known that as soon as he learned of the decision of the Commissioner General for Jewish Questions, he would immediately have drawn up a declaration for his daughter ”. He asks “if this statement has been made and if if so, you feel you should uphold your opinion for the purposes of prosecution”.

June 25, 1942 – The Governor General of Algeria writes to the Prefect of Constantine to address to him the request for prosecution presented by the Public Prosecutor’s Office against Mr. TUBIANA.

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