In 2012, SNCF supported Nathalie Bibas’s book, Henri Lang, 1895-1942, un dirigeant de SNCF mort à Auschwitz (« Henri Lang, 1895-1942, an SNCF director who died at Auschwitz »).
A graduate of the École Polytechnique, a Ponts et Chaussées engineer and a professor at the École des Ponts et Chaussées, Henri Lang became deputy director of the South-East Region in 1938, when SNCF was created. Following the introduction of the Vichy regime’s antisemitic laws, he was removed from his teaching and management positions in 1940. He nonetheless continued his work as an engineer and remained in charge of the Paris-Lyon line electrification project, which he oversaw until the eve of his arrest on 12 December 1941.
Interned at the Compiègne-Royallieu camp, Henri Lang was deported to Auschwitz on the convoy of 27 March 1942. He died there on 21 May 1942.
Through Henri Lang’s story, Nathalie Bibas retraces the fate of an SNCF engineer and director confronted with antisemitic persecution and deportation. The book thus helps to raise awareness of his story and to inscribe it in the company’s memory.
