Charles Palant

Charles Palant is militant French of the human rights born in 1922 in Paris. He was General secretary of the Mouvement against racism and for the friendship between the people between 1950 and 1971.

History

Charles Palant, Polish Jewish parents who had immigrant in France recently, grew in the district from Belleville to Paris. His/her father dies on April 2nd, 1933 and leaves a family of four children (whose Charles is the second) which must survive with the only wages of the elder one. February 12th, 1934, it misses the school to take part in the general strike. In July of the same year was signed the pact of unit of action between the Communists and the Socialists. One of the signatories, the Socialist Andre Blumel, will be fifteen years later the first president of MRAP. In 1935 Charles Palant leaves the school at twelve years: the certificate of primary studies, obtained six months earlier, will remain its only diploma. He then became leather dealer at a small employer of the vicinity.

In May 1936, the triumph of the Popular front doubled its wages to him, its working time was brought back fifty five hours to forty. In September 1939, it lost its work, and was engaged in a small factory of leather working. It then militates with the international Ligue against the anti-semitism (LICA), but due to be solved to flee Paris and to return there after having traversed, with feet, six hundred kilometers. “ At the age of the most exciting promises of the life, writes it, I have to survive to learn the hard laws from the illegality, to become forger, cross borders in my own country. ”.

In August 1943, denounced, it was stopped by the gestapo in its Lyons residence. His/her mother and her young sister, who was ten seven years old, were stopped with him. They perished in deportation. “ One understands that if one yields to sorrow, says it, one died ”. It is held in Fort-Montluc in Lyon, with the camp of Drancy close to Paris, then in the camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald from where it returned in 1945, weighing thirty-eight kilos. It was twenty three years old.

It is with the Communists, says it, that he learned how to refuse the injustice and that he resisted in the prisons and the camps. In 1949, it takes part in the creation of the MRAP, of which he was the general secretary during twenty and one year, and one of the Honorary president since. It also represents the MRAP with the National advisory commission of the human rights (CNCDH).

“ I do not remember any more when I became communist, he writes, but it is in Buchenwald that I adhered to PCF. (...) I never believe to have yielded to the fallacious promises of the great evening. I will never cease accepting the morning. ”

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