Léon Meiss
Léon Meïss (born March 17, 1896 in Sarrebourg , † June 27, 1966 in Courbevoie ) was a French lawyer and Jewish functionary.
Léon Meïss studied law at the University of Strasbourg and entered the French judicial service in 1920, which made him judge in Brumath (1920), Strasbourg (1921), Briey (1924), Saint-Die (1926), Charleville (1926) , Epinal (1930), Briey (1933) and Nancy (1936) finally led in 1937 as judges to the Court of Appeal ( Cour d'appel ) in Paris .
In September 1939 he was called up for military service and served as a military judge. On December 17, 1940, he was dismissed from civil service as a Jew on racial grounds. He moved to Villeurbanne near Lyon in unoccupied France and worked in various professions. He got involved in the Jewish community of Lyon and became a member of the Consistoire central israélite de France . In 1943 he became its vice-president, after the arrest of Jacques Helbronner his successor as president (until 1950). Meiss hid from the Gestapo in Savoy . Parts of his family were arrested and deported to Auschwitz . In 1944 he founded the Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France as the umbrella organization for all Jewish organizations in France, and remained its president until 1950.
After the liberation of France in 1944, he was returned to the judicial service, became Vice-President of the Tribunal de la Seine in 1944 , and in May 1945 judge at the Court of Appeal in Paris. As a member of the French delegation, he took part in the Nuremberg Trial at the end of 1945 . In March 1952 he was chairman of the Chamber of Appeal, in November 1955 judge at the Court of Cassation ( Cour de cassation ).
literature
- Eric Marcus: At the top of French Jewry: Léon Meiss, son of a butcher, takes over the office of the Rothschilds . In: Aufbau Vol. 12, No. 8, February 22, 1946, p. 19.
- André Blumel: Un grand Juif: Léon Meiss, Président du Consistoire Central des Israélites de France durant l'occupation ennemie . Ed. Guy Victor, Paris 1967.
Web links
- Documents for Léon Meiss's admission to the Legion of Honor in the database of the French National Archives.
- Léon Meiss on the Site du Judaisme d'Alsace et de Lorraine .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Meiss, Léon |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Meïss, Léon; Meiss, Léon Frédéric (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French lawyer and Jewish functionary |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 17, 1896 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Sarrebourg |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 27, 1966 |
| Place of death | Courbevoie |