Selected records of the Fonds Vanikoff from the French National Archives

Maurice Vanikoff was born in Russia in 1886. He fought in the First World War and obtained French citizenship in 1920. During the 1930’s, he became active in movements to defend the rights of political refugees and victims of anti-Semitism. During WW II, from 1940 to 1943, he was in Casablanca where he took up the cause of foreign Jews who volunteered and fought in WW I and II, but even though they were veterans, were interned in forced labor camps. From 1943 to 1944, he was the head of the Center of Political and Social Documentation created by the Commissariat of Information in Algiers. Later, he took up his human rights activities, especially as General Secretary of the Association for Judeo-Christian Friendship up to 1952. He was a vigilant witness to the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century as well as a guardian of the remembrance of victims of Nazism. As a lyricist, he was well-known under the pseudonym of Vanino.