Jacques Fesch

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Jacques Fesch (born April 6, 1930 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye , † October 1, 1957 in La Santé ) was sentenced to death and executed in 1957 for a robbery in which he shot a police officer . In the three years of his imprisonment until the execution of the death penalty , Fesch found his way back to the Christian faith. 36 years after his execution , the then cardinal and archbishop of Paris , Jean-Marie Lustiger , opened a beatification procedure for him.

Family and education

Jacques Fesch was the son of a wealthy Belgian banker . The ancestors of the Fesch family also included relatives of Cardinal Joseph Fesch , an uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte . From 1938 to 1947 Fesch received his education at the Ecole Saint-Erembert and later at the Lycée Claude Debussy in Paris. From 1950 to 1951 he did his military service in the French armed forces in Germany .

In 1951 Fesch married Pierrette Polack and had a daughter, Veronique. He later gave up his work in his father's bank and left his wife for someone else with whom he had a son named Gérard. His dream was to take a boat trip to the South Pacific . But his wealthy parents refused to finance such a trip for him.

Assault, trial and execution

On February 24, 1954, Fesch attacked Alexandre Silberstein's exchange office in Paris. Silberstein resisted and alerted the police . Fesch shot wildly and killed the policeman Jean Vergne. Although he was able to escape to the metro at first , the police arrested him there. On April 6, 1957, a Paris court sentenced him to guillotine death . On October 1, 1957, he was executed in the prison yard of Santé by executioner André Obrecht and buried in the old cemetery of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

Beatification requested

During the three years of his imprisonment before the execution of the death penalty, Jacques Fesch wrote mystical writings. He was reconciled with his family in prison and officially married his wife the day before he was beheaded. His last entry in his diary ended with the words: In five hours I will see Jesus Christ .

Since his death, Fesch has been seen by some Catholics as an example of salvation through the Christian religion. His widow and daughter Veronique manage the estate of his writings, which he wrote during his prison time. With her consent, Father Augustin-Michel Lemonnier, the Carmelite Sister Veronika and Father Giacomo Maria Medica SDB Fesch edited the literary estate. Fesch's writings were first published in the 1970s and have been reprinted several times since then and translated into many languages. On September 21, 1987, his widow submitted writings and petitions to the Archbishop of Paris to initiate a beatification process. Jean-Marie Lustiger opened this procedure in December 1993.

On stage and in film

The story of his conversion was filmed twice in France: Le glaive et la balance (1989) and Retour en grâce (1995).

In 2009 a theater play directed by Maria Blanco was premiered in Paris, which has its conversion as the theme. The Jacques played Alain Sportiello.

Works

  • Jacques Fesch: Lumière sur l'échafaud; suivi de Cellule 18: lettres de prison de Jacques Fesch, guillotiné le 1st octobre 1957 à 27 years . Éditions Ouvrières, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-7082-2833-1 .
    • English: Light over the Scaffold and Cell 18: The Prison Letters of Jacques Fesch. Alba House, New York 1996, ISBN 0-8189-0750-9 .
    • German: Augustin-Michel Lemonnier (Ed.): You accept me: Letters from d. Death row. Foreword by Michel Quoist . 2nd Edition. Herder, Freiburg 1975, ISBN 3-451-17086-8 .
    • further translations into Polish, Slovenian and Spanish
  • Jacques Fesch: Dans 5 heures je verrai Jésus !: Journal de prison , 3rd. Edition, Fayard - Le Sarment, 1998, ISBN 2-86679-168-1 .

literature

  • Gilbert Collard: Assasaint: L'histoire du bon larron modern . Presses de la Renaissance, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-7509-0368-8 .
  • André Manaranche: Jacques Fesch, you non-sens à la tendresse . Editions le Sarment, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-86679-365-X .
  • Francisque Oeschger: Jacques Fesch, le guillotiné de Dieu . Editions du Rocher, Monaco 1994, ISBN 2-268-01805-9 .
  • Jean Duchesne, Bernard Gouley: L'affaire Jacques Fesch . Editions de Fallois, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-87706-220-1 .
  • Gérard Droniou: Fesch, mon nom guillotiné. Editions du Rocher, Monaco 2001, ISBN 2-268-03947-1 . (Book of the illegitimate son who fought for the name)
  • Gérard Fesch (= Gérard Droniou): Mon enfance guillotiné. Récit. Archipelago, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-8098-0197-2 .
  • Ruggiero Pietro Francavilla: Jacques Fesch. L'avventura della fede di un condannato a morte. Ed. Paoline, Milan 2006, ISBN 88-315-3012-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ZENIT: Pope welcomes sister of a murderer in the beatification process ( memento of June 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) accessed December 9, 2009
  2. My father the murderer. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . January 30, 2007, accessed December 8, 2009
  3. Jacques Fesch. on: Find A Grave.
  4. Review: Assa-saint from Les Trois Coups ( Memento from March 13, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  5. Review: Théâtre: Lumière sur l'échafaud - Jacques Fesch