Many Liebman/Clerc developments

Many Liebman/Clerc developments

• Jun 25, 2012
• 0 Comment

There is much to add and not much time. I will compress quite a bit here.

About a week ago, Joanne asked me for the address for our great-aunt Hilda's former villa in a Paris suburb. If you read the previous item, you know that I found the address on a blog item written about a year ago by French jewelry blogger and historian Jean-Jacques Richard. His article included rich details on the early history of the Clerc jewelry store and brand, including how our uncle Joe came to gain control of the company in 1932 and how was able to flee from the Nazis eight years later with some small part of his fortune carried on his person.

Because M. Richard, who is a retired jewelry designer in Rochefort du Gard, France, knew so much of the prewar history of the company, Walter and I were surprised he was less well informed about the postwar chronology. While he referenced several official actions that Joe took in 1946 and 1961 to gain restitution for his losses, he didn't have the details. Moreover, he was unaware of the existence of Arnaud Clerc, who we knew had assumed control of the jewelry business after Joe's death in 1968.

He did know of Gerald Clerc, purveyor of a line of luxury Swiss watches under the Clerc brand, but he questioned the authenticity of Gerald's claim on the brand. I had only heard of Gerald in the briefest way, via a six-year-old posting on this blog.

Take a look at who made a comment on that post and you will see that our friend M. Richard was interested in the subject since way back then. You will also see that there was confusion about how the Clerc name related to our known Liebman family members.

Keep that in mind as we go on in the next post to Joanne's visit to the house on the Rue de la Saussaye.