Jacques Martin

Jacques Martin (1906–2001) was a French pacifist, one of the first conscientious objectors in France, and a Protestant pastor. His commitment to French Resistance and to the protection of persecuted Jews earned him the recognition of Yad Vashem as a "Righteous Among the Nations." He died in Die on 23 July 2001. Biography Youth and formative years Jacques Martin was born on 24 June 1906 in Sainte-Colombe, Rhône where his father was teaching. His grandfather was a methodist minister. From 1923 to 1927, he studied at the Protestant Faculty of Theology in Paris. There he became friends with André Trocmé, who was a few years older than him. He also met another student, Henri Roser, whose militant pacifist and internationalist ideas shook French Protestant society of that time. Jacques Martin then became a pacifist himself, and wished to contribute personally to international reconciliation, starting with France and Germany. He crisscrossed Germany walking through the 1925 summer. As a member of the French branch of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF, which is casually referred to as the “Fédé”), he took part in the 1926 German gathering of the WSCF. The same year he took charge of the editing of “Cahiers de la Réconciliation » (at the time a simple information bulletin which would be taken over and developed by Henri Roser from November 1927 on). In 1927, he took part in an "international reconciliation youth camp" in Vaumarcus, Switzerland, studied one semester in Berlin in 1929, where he got in touch with German pacifist Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze. In 1930, he welcomed Gandhi in Paris. From 1930 to 1932 he was the secretary of the WSCF. Conscientious objector In spite of his pacifist convictions, Jacques Martin performed military service in 1927-1928 - out of care for his father who had just been shaken by the loss of two sons. However, in December 1930, he returned his military papers, specifying that, as a Christian, he could not bear arms. In 1932, he refused to take part in a training session of the military reserve force and he was consequently arrested, tried and condemned to 12 months in prison on 11 October 1932. On 23 janvier 1934, Jacques Martin married Jacqueline Élié in Alès. In the summer of 1934, the young couple was expecting its first child when a new call-in letter arrived for a new follow-up military training, which he again refused to attend.