May Picqueray

Marie-Jeanne Picqueray , known under the name May Picqueray , (born July 8, 1898 in Savenay , † November 3, 1983 in Paris ) was a French author , resistance fighter and militant anarchist .

Life

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Raised in the French coastal town of Saint-Nazaire , Picqueray spent several years in Montreal (Canada), where she learned English and worked there as an au pair . At the age of 18, at the end of the First World War , she came to Paris. She married a merchant marine officer, but the marriage did not last long.

In Paris she made the acquaintance of anarchists, joined the anarchist youth and heard lectures by Sébastien Faure . In 1921 she met the libertarian conscientious objector Louis Lecoin . With Lecoin and other anarchists, Picqueray founded a support committee for the Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti , who were sentenced to death in the USA. The established French press took little notice of this death sentence and Picqueray sent a “gift package” with a grenade to the US Embassy in Paris in October 1921, in protest of the silence . The package was opened in the antechamber of the embassy; before the grenade exploded, a member of the embassy could throw it in a corner. There were no fatalities, but the property damage was great. In her autobiography, Picqueray stated that the grenade had done its duty: The French press now reported on the death sentence against Sacco and Vanzetti.

In the 1920s, Picqueray was frequently in Saint-Tropez . On the coast of southern France, the famous anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman had settled in a small house to write their autobiographies. Picqueray made herself useful as a secretary, typing the manuscript and proofreading Goldman's multi-volume autobiography.

In 1922 she traveled to Moscow to attend the Congress of the Red Trade Union International as a representative of the Federation of Metalworkers . Accompanied by delegate Lucien Chevalier, she drove through Berlin, where both Berkman and Goldman met, who informed them about the situation in Bolshevik- ruled Russia and the defeat of the Russian anarchists (William Wright). She also made the acquaintance of Rudolf Rocker and Augustin Souchy here . In Berlin, Picqueray was asked by Goldman and Berkman to campaign for the release of the anarchists Mollie Steimer and Senya Fleshin , who were in Russian custody, after their arrival in Moscow . Once in Moscow, Lucien and Picqueray went as delegates to Leon Trotsky's office and handed him a petition for the release of Steimer and Fleshin. Emma Goldman's two friends were released a few weeks later. "She [Picquerac] illegally visited underground anarchists like Nicolas Lazarevitch or ex-anarchists like Victor Serge , who now supported the Bolsheviks" (source: In Grassroots Revolution , see end of article). At a gala dinner in the Kremlin , she jumped indignantly on a table and protested against this gala dinner of the delegates, as there was a famine in Soviet Russia . On one of the final evenings at the end of the congress, Picquaray was asked to sing a French chanson . She accepted the suggestion and sang of Charles d'Avray: Up, up, you old revolutionaries, anarchy will finally triumph . She wrote about this in her autobiography: Oh, it was nice to look into the faces of the communists! If they could, they would have executed me on the spot .

Picqueray's courage is evident, among other things, from the fact that her delegate status in Soviet Russia was no protection for her life. Two of her comrades, Lepetit and Vergeat, also delegates, had disappeared forever in Soviet Russia the year before.

Cover of the magazine Le Réfractaire directed by Picqueray from 1974 to 1983

Back in Paris, Picqueray was actively involved in an escape aid group. With libertarian friends, she forged passports for German Jews so that they could avoid deportations, and for French workers who were sentenced to forced labor . An anarchist friend of hers worked as a secretary in a National Socialist office . Picqueray went "in and out" there and forged passports and documents right there in the office of the Nazis (W. Wright).

After the Second World War , she and her long-time political companion Louis Lecoin became involved in the anti-militarist movement. In the 1970s she supported the ecological movement .

In the French anarchist movement, May Picqueray was given the honorary title La Réfractaire (something like 'the insubordinate' or 'the dissident').

Marie-Jeanne Picqueray had three children: Sonia, Lucien and Marie-May.

Works

• May Picqueray: May la réfractaire . Les Editions Libertaires, 2004. May la réfractaire. Literary information, available online .

Further reading (selection)

• Olivia Gomolinski, May Picqueray, 1898-1983, une mémoire du mouvement anarchiste, mémoire de maîtrise . Paris 1994
• Aude Le Breton, Publicité pour l'AAEL . éd. you moons libertaire. Toulouse. ISBN 2-903013-83-7 .
• David Berry, The French Anarchist Movement, 1939-1945 . In: Andreas G. Graf (ed.): Anarchists against Hitler. Anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, council communists in resistance and exile . Lukas Verlag , Berlin 2001. ISBN 978-3-931836-23-8
• Archive for the history of resistance and work (magazine, issue 17), Bochum 1989. ISSN  0936-1014 Online brief information about May Picqueray .
• Victor Peters: Nestor Makhno — Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921 . Pages 11, 91, 93, 303. AK Press , Oakland December 2004. ISBN 978-1-902593-68-5 . Online briefs about May Picqueray . " May Picqueray also describes Galina as ..." very devoted, calm and sensible, attached to Nestor and likeable "; on the other hand, little Lucie who must have been almost three years old in 1925, struck May as a little imp, what with her ... ".
• Guide to the international archives and collections at the IISH, Amsterdam (English). Page 111. Publisher: International Institute of Social History . Amsterdam 1989. ISBN 978-9-068610-35-2
• Noël Godin : Anthologie de la subversion carabinée . (Résumant son séjour en URSS, May Picqueray écrit ainsi: "À ce paradis [soviétique], je préférais le régime républicain avec toutes ses imperfections, mais où je pouvais encore m'exprimer et lutter)." Dans un article publié, en 1930, ... (page 371). Editions l'Age d'Homme, March 2008. ISBN 978-2-825138-05-2
• Philippe Buton: Une histoire intellectuelle de la démocratie: 1918-1989 . Page 53. Publisher: Seli Arslan, January 1, 2000. ISBN 978-2-842760-36-6
• Michel Ragon : Histoire de la littérature prolétarienne en France . Page 147. Albin Michel Verlag, 1974. ISBN 978-2-226001-11-5 . Online order code
• Vie sociale. Participations et Implications sociales . La revue du CEDIAS-Musée social, No. 1, 2002. Participations et implications sociales . Brief information on no. 1, 2002. Online brief information : “ En 1974 encore, à 84 ans, elle suivra May Picqueray lorsque celli fonda Le Refractaire afin de poursuivre l'action de Louis Lecoin en faveur des objecteurs de conscience. Une fresque presque romanesque pour un personnage hors du ... “.

Web links

• Listen to May Picqueray . Brief information about the documentary by Bernard Baissat, France 1983 (French). May Picqueray tells her life as an anarchist.
• Bernard Baissat film online

Individual evidence

1. ^ Author: Bernard Thomas . Dates of birth and details of their life. Retrieved July 1, 2011. (French)
2. ↑ Various sources refer to Picqueray as an anarchist (the magazine Graswurzelrevolution ) or an anarcho-syndicalist (on the website "epheman.perso.neuf.fr". Author: Bernard Thomas)
3. ^ Author: Jean Maitron . Biography. Retrieved July 1, 2011. (French)
4. ↑ More details about the life of M. Picqueray . Retrieved July 1, 2011 (French)
5. ↑ Author: William Wright ( Memento of the original from June 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Grassroots Revolution No. 275, January 2003. Much of the information on this article is taken from this journal. Retrieved July 1, 2011. 
6. ^ Escape helper group . Retrieved July 1, 2011 (French)