Jean Goss

Jean Goss (born November 20, 1912 in Caluire near Lyon , † April 3, 1991 in Paris ) was a representative of active nonviolence .

Youth and conversion

Jean Goss was born as the son of Paul Barthélémy Goss and Jeanne Boni on November 20, 1912 in Caluire, the oldest of five children. His father was an opera singer who fell ill and lost his voice as a result of his refusal to serve during the First World War . As a 12-year-old, Jean Goss had to get by with small jobs in Paris. It was not until 1937 that he managed to get a permanent job with a railway company, later the SNCF . From the age of 15 he became involved in the trade union movement .

In 1939 he was drafted into the military. He fulfilled his conscription with conviction, since the war opponents Hitler and the Third Reich were demonic powers in his view. In the spring of 1940, France had just suffered devastating defeats, the lieutenant of his regiment committed suicide. Jean Goss continued to fight and later received an Order of Valor for it, but eventually had to surrender. He became a prisoner of war , in which he had a decisive experience, which he felt as experiencing the love of God. He realized that as a soldier he could not kill Hitler, only people who had wanted war as little as he himself.

This experience and its passing on to others became his life theme. In the prisoner of war, where injustice and violence dominated everyday life, he preached this, for which he was sentenced to death. The camp manager, at risk of his own life, prevented it from being carried out and hid him with a German pastor.

Commitment to nonviolence

After the liberation, Jean Goss sought contact with Catholics and their leaders in order to convince them of the absolute value of human dignity and of the need never to wage war again. In 1950 he got access to the Holy Office in the Vatican and met Cardinal Ottaviani there . However, some Catholic priests were annoyed by his impetus and referred him in 1948 to Protestants who shared his convictions.

In this way he got to know the International Federation of Reconciliation (IFOR), became a member of it and found a name for the theme of his life: nonviolence inspired by the spirit of the gospel . For many years he and his wife worked on the board of the French branch of the Union of Reconciliation, he for some time as its vice-president.

In 1948 he finally refused military service and returned his medals. From this point on, he advocated the recognition of conscientious objection to military service . He was also involved in building social housing and in the railroad workers' union. In 1953 he was the leader of a strike in Paris. After that, however, he decided to devote himself exclusively to the issue of nonviolence in the future. He participated in a congress of Pax Christi and then went to various peace conferences in Eastern Europe ( Budapest 1953, Warsaw 1956, Moscow 1957, Prague 1958).

In 1958 he married Hildegard Mayr , daughter of the Catholic peace activist Kaspar Mayr, and shortly afterwards gave up his job with the railway. The couple then lived mainly in Vienna and were committed to promoting justice, peace and active non-violence based on the spirit of the gospel. In 1960 the twins Myriam and Etienne were born. In 1962 they stayed in Rome as observers of the Second Vatican Council and got involved in the matter of conscientious objection to military service. They then lived in Latin America for a few years, from 1964 to 1965 in Brazil and from 1970/71 in Mexico . They organized two conferences to promote nonviolence (1966 in Montevideo , 1974 in Medellin ). This resulted in the organization Justitia et Pax , whose coordinator Adolfo Perez Esquivel received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980. During this time they worked with Dom Hélder Câmara , Monsignore Proaño , Don Fragoso and Fredy Kunz. In 1977 Jean Goss organized a seminar on nonviolence for the Latin American bishops in Bogotá .

At the same time, he and his wife also held seminars on non-violence in countries marked by war and violence: since 1963 in Ireland , since 1972 in the Balkans , since 1973 in southern Africa , 1974 to 1975 and 1980 in Lebanon and 1979 in El Salvador . In the 1980s they went to Asia and worked in the Philippines since 1984 , as well as in Thailand , Bangladesh and Hong Kong . Jean Goss experienced the 1986 non-violent revolution in the Philippines , which he helped to prepare and accompany. In the last years of his life he was called to Central Africa. In 1990 he went to Zaire .

Jean Goss died on April 3, 1991 in Paris. The next day he wanted to leave for Madagascar with his wife .

Movies

• International Federation of Reconciliation : Jean Goss Clip French for our IFOR Documentary Film YouTube 60 min.

literature

• Gérard Houver: Jean et Hildegarde Goss. la non-violence, c'est la vie. Paris, Ed. Cerf, 1981.
• Jean-Louis Jadoulle: Colloque Jean Goss: Paris 30 octobre 1993: Note relative aux lettres de Jean Goss conservées dans les papiers de Jean Van Lierde , Charleroi, MIR-IRG, 1993, 38 p. (Numéro spécial de MIR-IRG info ).
• Actes du Colloque Jean Goss on 30 oct. 1993 , Paris, MIR, 1995.
• Hildegard Goss-Mayr: How enemies become friends. My life with Jean Goss for nonviolence, justice and reconciliation. Freiburg im Breisgau, Herder publishing house, 1996.
• Hildegard Goss-Mayr: Oser le combat non-violent. aux côtés de Jean Goss. Paris, Ed. Cerf, 1998.
• Hildegard Goss-Mayr, Jo Hanssens: Jean Goss. Mystic and witness to nonviolence. Original: Jean Goss. Mystique et militant de la non-violence. Namur Belgium 2010, Translated from French by Hildegard Goss-Mayr and Lieselotte Wohlgenannt , foreword by Adolfo Pérez Esquivel , Patmos Verlag, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-8436-0172-6 .

Footnotes

1. ↑ Richard Schwenk: Onward, Christians! Protestants in the Philippine revolution . New Day Publishers, Quezon City 1986, ISBN 971-10-0305-8 , p. 41.