Anne-Marcelle Kahn

Anne-Marcelle Kahn, née Schrameck (4 June 1896 – 28 June 1965) was the first French woman engineer to graduate from l'École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne (the National School of Mines of Saint-Étienne), in 1919. She later married Louis Kahn, who became the first Jewish French Admiral. During the Second World War, unaided she crossed the Pyrenees with her two young children, bringing them to safety.

Early life

Anne-Marcelle Schrameck was born on 4 June 1896 in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. She was the daughter of Marguerite Odile Bernheim and Abraham Schrameck, who was a French Minister of the Interior in the Third Republic. She had two younger brothers. The family were Jewish.

Education In 1912, Schrameck entered a lyceum. In 1917, she attempted to apply to study mining engineering at l'École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne (EMSE). The grande ecole was deeply reluctant to admit her, despite receiving two letters from the Ministry of Public Works, which insisted that during World War I, young women should be admitted to train in engineering due to the wartime shortages. The management committee attempted to argue that "that the main career paths to which the School’s courses lead, notably that of underground mining engineer or metallurgical engineer, are virtually inaccessible to women" and that whilst they could "conceive of a woman being of use as an engineer in certain ancillary services, such as electrical services in mines or laboratory work in metallurgy", the EMSE's courses were less likely to lead to such ancillary careers than courses at other schools already open to women. Georges Desplas, the Minister for Public Works, insisted that EMSE should admit women and eventually the grande ecole agreed to let Schrameck sit the entry examination.

Following her admission, there was significant debate over the suitability of a woman taking the course as pupils had to undertake an internship as a miner, considered inappropriate for a woman.

Marriage to Louis Kahn On 11 July 1922, Anne-Marcelle Schrameck married Louis Kahn, a marine engineer, at the Synagogue de la Victoire in Paris. The couple lived in Brest, then Saïgon then Lorient and had two sons, Pierre (1926–1997) and Jean (1931–2017). Between 1927 and 1929 she was a member of Shakespeare and Company, an English language bookshop in Paris run by Sylvia Beach.

Second World War In July 1940 her father, Abraham Schrameck, voted in parliament in favour of giving full powers to Marshal Pétain at the start of the Vichy Republic but despite this support he was stripped of his senatorial position by Pétain on 27 November 1941 and was soon arrested and interned because of his Jewish origins. Managing to reach Provence, he remained hidden there until the Libération.

On 15 August 1941 Louis Kahn was sacked from the Navy following the introduction of antisemitic laws preventing Jews holding state offices.

The family fled separately to escape any further reprisals. After two escape attempts, Louis Kahn managed to reach London alone. He joined the Free French Naval Forces (FNFL) with the rank of chief engineer. With the Minister of the Navy Louis Jacquinot and Vice-Admiral André Lemonnier, he became one of the leaders of the renewal of the Free French Naval Forces based in Algiers, following its conquest by Allied forces following Operation Torch in November 1942. He held the post of director of naval constructions from 1943. In November 1942, the Germans invaded the free zone. On 24 December 1942, a bomb was placed in one of the large hotels in Marseille. The wife of the German consul lost both legs in the explosion, and died a few days later. The reprisals began with arrests and deportations.

Marseille had become a dangerous place as the Germans destroyed the district of the Old Port of Marseille, and instituted the Marseille roundup (22 – 24 January 1943) in collaboration with the French police of the Vichy government, directed by René Bousquet. The police checked the identity documents of 40,000 people and arrested and deported over 2000 Jewish people.

Anne-Marcelle Kahn decided to leave Marseille when a 16-year-old friend of her son was arrested and deported by the Germans. She and the children often slept in friends' houses for safety whilst she tried to get papers in another name to protect them. The Resistance took her in, gave her good accommodation, and fed her for eight days whilst new identity cards were created for her and the children.