Claire Monis (10 February 1922 – 25 October 1967) was a French singer, actress, and lieutenant in the French resistance. She was a Holocaust survivor as a member of the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra. After WW2, Claire was a producer of movies and TV shows.
Family and childhood Monis was born on 10 February 1922 in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.. Her parents, Avroum (alias Albert) Monis, a theatre bellman, Klezmer clarinet and accordion player, a cabinet maker, and Suzanne Aisenstein, originally from Russia, emigrated to France beginning of the 20th century, fleeing the anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia. They married on 7 May 1921 in the 18th arrondissement of Paris and obtained French citizenship in 1928 with their two daughters.Journal officiel de la République française, édition du 8 juillet 1928, . The couple set up as furniture merchants with the sign "Aux Galeries Saint-Maur", which later became a cabinetmaking shop "Les Meubles Monis".
Singing career In 1938, Monis won the "music-hall des jeunes", a competition organized by the French federation of communist youths, which led her to take part with Pierre Dac in the youth gala.La fédération des jeunesses communistes de France vous invite au gala de la jeunesse - du music-hall : Pierre Dac, le roi des loufoques et Claire Monis, in le quotidien L'Humanité, édition du 23 novembre 1938. In addition, she took part in radio concerts, notably in Charles Trenet's program for the Radio Cité station,Radio-Cité, le poste le plus écouté, vous offre ce soir, in le quotidien L'Intransigeant, édition du 27 juin 1938. with and André Perchicot She also sang in the cinema where she played the role of "Clarita" in the film "Je chante", a musical comedy directed in 1938 by Christian Stengel with Charles Trenet..Distribution du film Je chante, in revue Le Nouveau Film, édition du 5 novembre 1938, ..
Monis sang in Parisian cabarets: with Jacques Pills at the cabaret "Chez Elle",Programme du cabaret « Chez Elle », in Paris-Soir, édition du 31 mai 1941. at "La Boîte à Sardines";Programme du cabaret « La Boîte à Sardines », in Comœdia, édition du 18 avril 1942, described as a "swing singer", she hosted the evenings of the cabaret "Au Normandy".Programme du cabaret « Au Normandy », in La Petite Gironde, édition du 25 février 1942. She participated, notably with Paul Meurisse and , in the grand opening gala of the cabaret " À la Cave de la Cloche ".Annonce du grand gala d'ouverture du cabaret « À la Cave de la Cloche », in Paris-Soir, édition du 25 mars 1939 She also participated in the programme of the cabaret " L'Écrin ", 19 rue Joubert Paris 9e, with Léo Marjane, Jacqueline Figus and Jean Solar.Programme du cabaret « L'Ecrin », in Paris-Soir, édition du 26 janvier 1942
Resistance and deportation
Monis was a Resistance fighter in the Free French Forces (FFL) and the Fighting French Forces (FFC) within the Robin-Buckmaster network. created by and of which she was the secretary. She used her singing tour (song order and word changes) to inform her network.
She was arrested on 22 June 1942. at 6, place du Combat in Paris, and sent to Fresnes prison, then interned on 10 September 1942 at the Autun citadel in the Saône-et-Loire department.
She declared herself to be non-Jewish and tried in vain to obtain a Catholic baptism certificate. Still, the new director of the status of Jewish people (under the general commissariat for Jewish questions), Emile Boutmy, demanded her father's birth certificate, which was impossible to provide. As a result, Monis was classified as "100% Jewish", on 22 December 1943. She was sent to the Drancy camp where she left 100 francs. at the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation before being deported to Auschwitz. by convoy no. 66 on 20 January 1944. She was 21 years old. She escaped the extermination after being recruited into the Auschwitz women's orchestra as a singer in the orchestra led by Alma Rosé.. There she met other French women, including Hélène Rounder and Fanny Ruback, who also survived. All the survivors were transferred on 31 October 1944 to the Bergen-Belsen camp, where they arrived on 2 November 1944. The camp was liberated on 15 April 1945 by the British army. Monis was repatriated by truck on 17 May 1945 to Paris. She obtained her certificate as part of the French Fighting Force with the rank of Lieutenant of the French Resistance..
After the war A book by Professor Susan Eischeid details the relationships between the survivors of the Orchestra, including the 1976 Fania Fenelon’s narrative, contradicted by those of , Anita Lasker-Wallfisch as well as Helena Dunicz-Niwińska..
Monis met Charles-Henri Kahn (1915-1999) in 1945 at a Gaullist rallye and married him in 1947 in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. From this marriage two children were born, one of whom was Philippe Kahn in 1952. They were separated in 1957 and divorced in 1961. Monis raised her son Philippe alone. He was granted the status of the "ward of the Nation", after her death, thanks to Monis’s anticipation.
Monis pursued her career as a violinist and singer (classical, klezmer, and jazz) and frequently received her friends from the Resistance (such as ) and musicians around the family piano. She played with Luis Mariano in 1948 in the operetta Andalousie by Francis Lopez at the Gaîté-Lyrique, and performed the role again in 1949 and 1950 in Lyon..
Filmography Monis then became a producer at ORTF and Radio France. After several trips to Canada and the United States, she turned to production with television series and movies
L'Inspecteur Leclerc in 1962 Les Aventures de Robinson Crusoé in 1964-1965, Marcel Carné's Trois chambres à Manhattan in 1965 Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Deuxième Souffle in 1966 L'Echantillon, La Mendigote and Le Golem in 1966 from . and her last production : "Pitchi Poï ou la parole donnée" in 1967
Death
Monis was hit by a car in front of her parents' shop at 11 Rue du Faubourg du Temple, at 11th arrondissement of Paris. She died a few days later as a result of this accident, on 25 October 1967 at her home in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. She was buried on 27 October 1967 in the Parisian cemetery of Bagneux.. The words "Mort pour la France" were added to her death certificate in 1977.Avis du Secrétariat d'Etat aux anciens combattants, décision N°100.348.99.205.EC du 21 février 1977
References
Further reading
Fania Fénelon and Marcelle Routier. Playing for Time. Translated from the French by Judith Landry. Atheneum New York 1977. . Eischeid, Susan."The Truth about Fania Fénelon and the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz-Birkenau". Stock, 1976 - then Palgrave MacMillan New York 2016. Fania Fénelon and Marcelle Routier. Sursis pour l'orchestre. Témoignage recueilli par Marcelle Routier. Co-édition Stock/Opera Mundi. Paris 1976. . Esther Bejarano and Birgit Gärtner. Wir leben trotzdem. Esther Bejarano--vom Mädchenorchester in Auschwitz zur Künstlerin für den Frieden. Herausgegeben vom Auschwitz-Komitee in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland [We Live Nevertheless] e.V. Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag Bonn, 2007. Esther Bejarano, Man nannte mich Krümel. Eine jüdische Jugend in den Zeiten der Verfolgung. Herausgegeben vom Auschwitz-Komitee in der Bundesrepublik e.V. Curio-Verlag Hamburg 1989. Richard Newman and Karen Kirtley, Alma Rosé. Vienna to Auschwitz. Amadeus Press Portland Oregon 2000. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Inherit the Truth. A Memoir of Survival and the Holocaust. St. Martin's Press New York 2000. Gabriele Knapp, Das Frauenorchester in Auschwitz. Musikalische Zwangsarbeit und ihre Bewältigung. von Bockel Verlag Hamburg 1996. Violette Jacquet-Silberstein and Yves Pinguilly, Les sanglots longs des violons... Avoir dix-huit ans à Auschwitz. Publié par les éditions Oskarson (Oskar jeunesse) Paris 2007. Previously published with the title Les sanglots longs des violons de la mort. Jacques Stroumsa. Violinist in Auschwitz. From Salonica to Jerusalem 1913-1967. Translated from German by James Stewart Brice. Edited by Erhard Roy Wiehn. Hartung-Gorre Verlag. Konstanz (mentions Julie Stroumsa) Mirjam Verheijen. Het meisje met de accordion: de overleving van Flora Schrijver in Auschwitz-Birkenau en Bergen-Belsen. Uitgeverij Scheffers Utrecht 1994. Rachela Zelmanowicz Olewski. Crying is Forbidden Here! A Jewish Girl in pre-WWII Poland, The Women's Orchestra in Auschwitz and Liberation in Bergen-Belsen. Edited by Arie Olewski and his sister Jochevet Ritz-Olewski. Based on her Hebrew testimony, recorded by Yad-Vashem on 21 May 1984. Published at the Open University of Israel 2009. Helena Dunicz-Niwińska. "One of the Girls in the Band. The Memoirs of a Violinist from Birkenau". Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2021 . Jean-Jacques Felstein. Dans l'orchestre d'Auschwitz - Le secret de ma mère. Auzas Éditions Imago Paris 2010. Bruno Giner. Survivre et mourir en musique dans les camps nazis. Éditions Berg International 2011. Laurent Joly. "Vichy dans la "solution finale"". Editions Grasset et Fasquelle. .
External links "The Girls in the Auschwitz Band". thegirlsintheauschwitz.band (names of band members and some information).