France honored historian Marc Bloch on Tuesday with interment in the Panthéon in Paris in a ceremony led by French President Emmanuel Macron. Bloch, a French Jewish academic and co-founder of the Annales school of historiography, was recognized for his wartime heroism as a member of the French Resistance, who was captured, tortured, and executed by the Nazis in 1944.
Caskets containing Bloch's medals and photographs of him and his wife were buried with military honors in the secular mausoleum reserved for France's national heroes. At the request of his family, Bloch's ashes will remain buried in the village where he lived for much of his life in central France.
Macron eulogized Bloch, quoting the historian's description of himself as “a Jew, who does not hide.” He stated that Bloch was handed over to the Nazis and murdered, along with his companions, on June 16, 1944. Macron added that Vichy propaganda portrayed Bloch as a terrorist simply because he was Jewish, and that this is where antisemitism inevitably leads.
Bloch was born in 1886 in Lyon to an Alsatian Jewish family and raised in Paris. He volunteered for the French Army in 1914 at the start of World War I, where he was wounded twice and awarded the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre. After two decades as a medieval studies specialist and a co-founder of the journal Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Bloch was re-mobilized for military service at the start of World War II.
His book, “Strange Defeat,” written in 1940 and published posthumously, offers a first-hand account of France's military failure and surrender to Nazi Germany. Under the collaborationist Vichy regime, Bloch joined the French Resistance.
The Gestapo arrested Bloch in March 1944. He was subjected to torture under Klaus Barbie, but refused to divulge information about his associates. The Nazis executed Bloch shortly after D-Day.
Macron credited Bloch as being among those who “saved the honor and soul of France” during a generation affected by antisemitism and collaboration with Nazism. Political figures on the left and right debated the meaning of Bloch's legacy on social media, with Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally party, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise, exchanging criticisms regarding historical interpretations and affiliations.