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Heroes of Israel

Léo Cohn

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Who

Léo Cohn · Heroes of Israel

What

Chef des Éclaireurs israélites de France, fondateur de leur chorale et convoyeur d'enfants vers l'Espagne

When

15 octobre 1913 — 28 décembre 1944

Where

Lübeck (Allemagne) — mort au camp d'Echterdingen

Biography

Léo Cohn is recognized among Israeli contributors to Heroes of Israel — Chef des Éclaireurs israélites de France, fondateur de leur chorale et convoyeur d'enfants vers l'Espagne

How & why

Origins and early life

Léo Cohn was born at Lübeck in Germany on 15 October 1913; his mother, Miriam Carlebach, came from the Carlebach family, one of the great rabbinical lines of German Jewry.

Work and career

He left Germany for France and became one of the leading figures of the Éclaireurs israélites de France, the Jewish scouts, where he taught Hebrew and founded the choir that gave the movement its songs — he set liturgical and Hebrew texts to music, and those melodies were sung in the hidden farms and children's homes all through the war. Under the Occupation he took charge of religious instruction and of the rescue of Jewish children, moving them between hiding places and preparing their escape across the Pyrenees to Spain. He was arrested on 17 May 1944 at a railway station while making ready to take a group of young people out.

Later years

He was deported by convoy 77 on 31 July 1944, the last great convoy from Drancy, and after Auschwitz was transferred to the camp at Echterdingen, near Stuttgart, where he died of exhaustion on 28 December 1944, at thirty-one. His songs are still sung in French Jewish youth movements.

Sources & external links

Verify and go deeper with these external references.

Source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Cohn

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Contributions & Sources

Chef des Éclaireurs israélites de France, fondateur de leur chorale et convoyeur d'enfants vers l'Espagne

1944

Source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Cohn