Mrs. Jeanne Blum, widow of Leon Blum, the pre-war French Socialist leader who became France’s first Jewish Prime Minister, died last week at her country home at Jouy-en-Jossas. She was believed to have been in her late 70s and lived in retirement since her husband’s death in 1950.
Mrs. Blum was Leon Blum’s third wife. She obtained authorization from the Vichy authorities to marry him while he was under arrest in Chazeron following the Nazi defeat of France. In 1943, she was allowed to join him at the Buchenwald concentration camp where Blum was deported.
Mrs. Blum was last seen in public a year ago when, following the election victory of President Francois Mitterrand’s Socialist Party, the new French Prime Minister, Pierre Mauroy, called at her home to pay tribute to her late husband.
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