Word: joanovici
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...police dossier on Joseph Joanovici might read something like this...
Mile-Long Queues. In 1927 Joseph Joanovici emerged from the obscurity of the Balkans to settle down in the Parisian suburb of Clichy. In twelve years he progressed from a ragpicker's cart to become a millionaire and one of France's top scrap metal dealers. At the outbreak of World War II, 34-year-old Joanovici tried to enlist in the French army. Turned down because he was still a Rumanian national, he sent his personal check for $3,000 to War Minister Edouard Daladier to help the war effort...
When the Nazis marched into Paris, Joanovici sought to avoid the concentration camps by taking out Soviet citizenship papers (the Nazi-Soviet pact was not yet broken). Taunted later for this, Joanovici snapped: "So, is it a crime? There were queues a mile long outside the Russian embassy...
When Germany attacked Russia in 1941, nimble Joanovici became a Rumanian again by the simple process of buying back his papers from a Vichy French passport official. Later he declared himself a stateless person. Soon the Nazis were knocking at his door, not to arrest him, but to beg humbly for his help. Germany was short of scrap, and Joanovici could supply...
Aryan Businessman. The Nazis let him out again and, back in his old job, Joseph Joanovici became "a state within a state." His payroll included Vichy officials, Gestapo agents, profiteers, speculators, fences, gangsters. He once explained the niceties of his profession: "I had lunch with the Vichy official whose job it was to see that all businesses were run by Aryans. He noticed I spoke with an accent and asked me where I was born. I told him I would like to give him money regularly, as a contribution to the Red Cross...