Henri Bergson, French philosopher who died in Paris on Jan. 4, had been converted to Catholicism a few years before his death, but nevertheless registered as a Jews under the racial laws rather than appear to be abandoning the Jews, it is revealed by Raissa Maritain, a former student of Prof. Bergson, in an article in the Catholic weekly Commonweal.
“He died more than ever in solidarity with his people,” Mme. Maritain wrote. “Yet Henri Bergson had been baptized. He did not wish to make this fact public during his lifetime, through delicacy of feeling for the persecuted Jews whom he would thus have seemed to abandon to their distress.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
