Henri Bergson died in Paris on January 4, 1941, at 81. He'd won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927 — unusual for a philosopher — for prose that, according to the committee, combined "brilliant imagery" with profound ideas about time and consciousness. When the Nazis occupied Paris in 1940, Bergson was exempt from anti-Jewish laws because the Vichy government offered him honorary Aryan status. He refused it. He stood in line with other Jewish Parisians to register, reportedly in the cold, in failing health. He died weeks later.
January 4, 1941
85 years ago
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