Same initials, same fight: Josiane Dairin and Jacques David, from BNCI to the Resistance

Last update: Jun 23, 2025

Portraits of Josiane Dairin and Jacques David, created by BNP Paribas Historical Archives

Both were employees of Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie, and both were members of the French Resistance and deported to camps.
Josiane Dairin was already resilient when she joined the Bank in northern France in 1942. She’s home with resistance fighters.
Jacques David enlisted in the French army in September 1939 and joined the Nemours branch of BNCI as a supernumerary after being released from a German prison in 1942. The following year he returned to the Resistance and joined the fighters in North Africa.
Read on to find out more about the acts of bravery of this woman and this man, who were barely out of their teens when plunged into the Second World War.

Josiane Dairin, a member of the Resistance at the age of 16

Josiane Dairin was born in Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme on 15 June 1924. In early summer 1942, she joined Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie in her home town as a bank clerk.
But she had already joined the French Resistance two years earlier. In 2013, Michel Segonzac collected Josiane’s testimony on her deportation. He asked her how, at just 19 years old, she was thinking of joining the Resistance. Josiane replied that “we didn’t think, we were against the Germans naturally” (a statement reported in Bulletin No. 54 of the Société d’archéologie et d’histoire de Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme et du Ponthieu, page 108).

^{Portrait provided by the family of Josiane Dairin}

Josiane’s daughter told us about one of the events recounted to her by her mother: “When she worked at BNCI during the war, she remembers cycling with her manager, Charles Tavernier, to Cailleux via Le Hourdel. They made this journey once or twice a week. On such a journey, they were robbed by resistance fighters who, in need of money for their combat, relieved them of one million French francs.”

Josiane’s role in the Resistance, along with her mother Marcelle, a hairdresser, was to house other Resistance fighters.

In March 1944, Pierre Gest, a young member of the Franc-tireur et partisan français (FTPF) resistance movement, had lived with them for some time. Gest, a mechanic, was armed and highly active, and hunted by the Germans.

Following a tip-off, the Gestapo arrested Josiane and her mother on 14 March 1944. Pierre Gest was taken with them. He was deported to Buchenwald under registration number 85550.

Josiane, barely 20 at the time, was also deported. She was moved to several camps, initially with her mother, and finally attributed prisoner number 38823 at Ravensbrück.

She was sent alone to the women’s Kommando in Hannover-Limmer, opened in June 1944. At the time, the companies there had more than 1,000 people making gas masks.

Josiane Dairin was liberated from Bergen-Belsen by the Red Cross in spring 1945, returning to her job at the Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme branch. Like many other institutions, BNCI ensured that these prisoners had a job on their return.

^{Façade of BNCI in 1948, BNP Paribas Historical Archives, 3Fi297, the name of the regional bank absorbed by BNCI in 1937, Banque Adam, can be seen on the front of the building: banque Adam}

Did you know ?

In 1944, BNCI introduced compensation measures for prisoners of war, backdated to 1 May of the same year. Prisoners benefitted from all the pay and grade increases that would have applied had they not been taken prisoner.
These measures also took into account staff who did not previously receive any compensation, as well as trainees. They supplemented military pay.

^{BNCI Circulars, 1944, BNP Paribas Historical Archives, 251AH024.}

Josiane left BNCI in September 1946 to marry the American painter William Einstein. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the Médaille Militaire and the Legion of Honour.

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Derrière la porte, une histoire, un destin

Michelle Tajan

Jacques David, a student in the Secret Service

Jacques David was born on 2 June 1920 in Penhars, Brittany. He was a student when the Second World War broke out and joined the French Resistance in November 1940.
As an intelligence officer, he was tasked with gathering information for the French Air Force’s intelligence service. This information was passed on to the British services via the Vichy diplomatic pouch.

^{Portrait from the personnel file of the SHD de Vincennes, GR 28 P 425 73}

Arrested after being denounced on 25 March 1941, Jacques David is interned first at Prison de la Santé in Paris before being transferred to the prison in Fresnes. Five months later, he was sentenced by a German military court to four years’ imprisonment.

But he only spent a few months in prison, as he was conditionally released and placed under house arrest. Returning to his parents’ home, he started working at BNCI in Nemours on 1 May 1942 as a supernumerary.

Refusing to take part in the Obligatory Labour Service (Service du travail obligatoire, STO), he rejoined the local Resistance in 1943. He went back underground and travelled to North Africa via Spain. He worked for the Central Intelligence and Action Bureau (Bureau central de renseignements et d’action, BCRA) in Algiers and then for the Directorate General of Research (Direction générale des Études et Recherches, DGER), before joining the Liberation Army.

^{BNC Nemours branch in 1925, BNP Paribas Historical Archives, 3Fi142. BNC ceased trading in 1932. BNCI was created to take over some of BNC’s customers and branches, including the branch in Nemours.}

He was awarded the Resistance Medal and made a Commander of the Order of the Legion of Honour.

Jacques David at the BNCI

As with Josiane Dairin, BNCI ensured that Jacques had a job on his return. He returned to his branch after the Liberation of France and went on to enjoy a long career in banking, both in France and abroad (Troyes, Romilly-sur-Seine, Saigon, Dakar, Abidjan, Conakry, Bouake, Briançon, Périgueux, Lyon).
In 1975, he was appointed deputy branch manager in BNP’s Rhône-Alpes Auvergne network, BNCI having merged with CNEP to form BNP in 1966.
Jacques retired in September 1976,(Bulletin d’information no. 40 of the Association amicale des retraités de la BNP, BNP Paribas Historical Archives, PER86_1976_040).

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Résistance et espionnage, Book on Demand, 2023.

Thierry Marchand

What is a supernumerary ?

In 1959, the BNCI circulars gave us an insight into the conditions and motivations for the recruitment of supernumeraries by the bank (cotation 251AH098). According to these documents, a supernumerary is “a quality agent” recruited in surplus to replace an executive. What is meant by ‘quality agent’? This means that he has “studied”, “looks good” and is “open-minded”. He is between 18 and 25 years old and will undergo training for about a year before taking his first job. It will itself be a future framework for the company if everything goes well.

François Hecker, a BNP director, told us about his first job interviews at the end of the Second World War, during which he escaped from the “Aspirantenlager” camp for young recruits and joined the Resistance, working under a false name in French factories where the V1s were assembled.
After the Liberation, he wanted to work in banking. The first door he knocked on was that of CNEP, where he was offered a supernumerary position because he did not have a banking diploma. Not entirely convinced by the job offer, François Hecker tried his luck at Crédit Lyonnais. The bank offered him the same position, saying it would contact him when necessary.
A third bank was in the same street: BNCI. He meets with the Director of Personnel, who asks him some questions about his past experiences. François Hecker had six years of war after his studies. He outlined his experiences since September 1939 and his involvement in the army. He mentions military school, fighting, imprisonment, escape from the Aspirantenlager camp, and then the Resistance when he works under a false name in the French factories where the V1s were set up to collect technical information. He finally tells of the Liberation, during which he trains officers. He then left the army and here he is, at the age of 22, at the entrance of the BNCI. The Director of Personnel takes his telephone and announces to his interlocutor “had someone he might be interested in”. That person was none other than Alfred Pose, Director of BNCI, who was looking for people with no university education but having been active in the Second World War to join his ranks and take up the challenge of building a fledgling BNCI. Alfred Pose told him, “Sir, this is the company that was waiting for you; there is no question of you going anywhere else. This is where your destiny lies, so you shall be joining us in eight days’ time. You will be a special trainee…”. BNCI did not offer a supernumerary position to the man who would go on to become Director of International Development in the 1980s; instead it offered him a trainee position to assess his potential.

^{BNP Paribas Historical Archives, AUA22.}