José Aboulker
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José Aboulker (b. March 5, 1920) was a member of the anti-Nazi resistance. He was born in the Algerian capital Alger into a Jewish family. His father, Henri Aboulker, was a surgeon and professor in the Faculty of Medicine in Alger. His mother, Berthe Aboulker, was a woman of letters.
In April 1940, José Aboulker, studying medicine at the time, was mobilised as an officer cadet. He was demobilised in February 1941.
José Aboulker and the Algerian Resistance
In September 1940, he had founded a resistance network in Alger, in partnership with his cousin Roger Carcassonne who had done the same at Oran, and he subsequently became one of the main leaders of the Algerian Resistance movement. The 2 cousins met Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie, with whom they prepared the French assistance to the future Allied landings, in collaboration with Colonel Germain Jousse and Consul Robert Murphy, President Roosevelt's representative in Alger.
The headquarters for the preparation were at José's father's house, at 26 Rue Michelet.
On the night of the Allied landings in North Africa, the 8 November 1942, José Aboulker commanded the occupation of Alger by 400 members of the Resistance, at the central police station, with his deputy Bernard Karsenty and the help of Guy Calvet and Superintendent Achiary.
Led by their group leaders, all of the Resistance fighters, with the exception of the reserve officers, neutralised the command centres, occupied strategic positions and stopped the military officials and civilian supporters of the Vichy government, starting with General Juin, the Commander-in-chief, and Admiral François Darlan.
In the morning, when the 19th Army Corps of the Vichy Government, finally aware of the operation, tried to mobilise themselves, it had to concentrate its efforts on the Resistance fighters rather than the forces of the Allied landing. With the landings around Alger having been completed, José Aboulker, anxious not to spill French blood, asked the group leaders, one after another, to evacuate their positions. He also organised, with the group leader Captain Pillafort, barricades using the Resistance fighters who had become available when certain positions had been evacuated, so as to paralyse the mobilisation. The result was that, by the evening, the forces of the Vichy government had not dared to confront the central police station, the last place with insurgents. It was thus, thanks to this “putsch” of 8 November 1942, that the Allies were able to land without opposition and then encircle Alger, causing the town to capitulate that evening, with its port intact and the leaders of the African Army to surrender.
Unlike at Oran and Morocco, where the putsch had failed, the Americans, greeted with artillery fire, lasted three days to supply injured combatants and only stopped the fire after having received the order of Juin and Darlan, given since Alger, under the threat of General Clark.
Afterwards, Darlan, who was still in power and who had maintained the Vichy government regime in the Allied camp with the support of General Giraud, was killed by the young patriot Bonnier of La Chapelle. Giraud succeeded Darlan and José Aboulker was then arrested, under Giraud’s order, just as most of the Resistance leaders were and deported to South Algeria in December 1942, without the slightest opposition from Robert Murphy, the US representative.
José Aboulker and the Metropolitan Resistance
Freed following the Casablanca Conference in 1943 (also called the “Anfa Conference”), José Aboulker returned to London in May 1943 and joined the Free French.
In October of that year, he was sent secretly into occupied France, as someone “responsible for the organisation of the health service of the Resistance movement”, preparing for the Liberation. There, he led operations parachuting surgical equipment into France.
Back in London in June 1944, he returned to Alger, where he had his viva in medicine.
In August 1944, he left for a new mission in the South of France, to place prefects at Toulouse, Limoges and Clermont-Ferrand.
José Aboulker in Times of Peace
José Aboulker was the representative of the Algerian Resistance at the Provisional Consultative Assembly at Paris from 1944 to 1945, and he presented a proposition to change the electoral law in Algeria, to allow the election of native Muslim deputies, who had never previously been admitted. This proposition was adopted by the Assembly, which allowed such deputies at the Constituent Assembly.
After the war, José Aboulker joined the Communist Party and in 1946, he resumed his medicinal studies. He passed the internal examinations at the Hospital of Paris and finally became Professor of neurosurgery.
He committed himself to Algerian independence and opposed, in 1958, the return of General de Gaulle in the launch of the plots of May 13. But then, taking into account the General’s actions regarding decolonisation, he voted in his favour in 1965. He belonged to the emergency medical service set up for the president of the Republic following the assassination attempt made on Petit-Clamart.
José Aboulker is a French Resistance Fighter, a Commander of the Legion of Honour and holder of the War Cross (1939-45), with 3 citations, just like the US Medal of Freedom.
José Aboulker has been a member of the Liberation Council since June 1999.
Bibliography
- Professeur José Aboulker et Christine Levisse-Touzé, 8 novembre 1942 : Les armées américaine et anglaise prennent Alger en quinze heures, Paris, Espoir, n° 133, 2002.