Bernard Natan

Origins and early life

Bernard Natan was born Natan Tannenzaft to Jewish parents in Iași, Romania, in 1886.

Work and career

He worked up from projectionist and chemist to cinematographer and producer, and in 1929 acquired Pathé — the largest film studio in France. Under him Pathé-Natan built studios, equipped cinemas for sound and produced some sixty films. When the company collapsed in 1935 he was pursued with what the record calls false and antisemitic accusations of fraud, convicted and imprisoned; he was also attacked for concealing his Romanian and Jewish origins by changing his name.

He was still in prison when France fell, which is why he could not flee as other Jewish filmmakers did. He was moved to Drancy and deported to Auschwitz on 25 September 1942, where he was murdered. Claims that he had made pornographic films were used against him at trial and repeated for decades; the historians of Les Indépendants du Premier Siècle established that the men identified as Natan are other people, the 2013 documentary Natan compared the stills with his official photographs, and the researcher who first made the claims has since allowed there is room for doubt. A plaque to his work and his murder was unveiled in December 2014.