Le dernier poilu. Lazare Ponticelli [French]

By Véronique Fourcade

From now on the name Ponticelli will remain known in History as the name of the last witness of the First World War's atrocities. What is less known about him, because he was very discrete about it, is that he figures in the annals of the economic world and of French industry. Indeed, the extraordinary life of Lazare Ponticelli cannot be reduced to his feats of arms, his 6 years mobilisation and his Italian "Military Cross".
When Lazare, alone, runs away from the poverty of his native Italy at 9 years old to join up with his mother and 2 brothers in Paris, he does not know how to read or write, or speak French. After the ordeal of WWI, the three brothers worked hard as chimney sweepers. Albeit illiterate, their hands were bursting with cleverness and their muscles with courage. They created a company which built and maintained factory chimneys. After WWII, the Ponticelli company diversified its activities, employing thousands of people, opening several agencies abroad and outside Paris.
In spite of his social advancement, the man never left his little suburban house in Kremlin-Bic tre, where he had settled in 1922. Over 100 years old, he was living there on his own, doing his shopping at the market every day. In 1996, he received the Legion of Honour. His last challenge was to be "the last of the last". He succeeded: he died on March 12, 2008, at the age of 110.

V ronique Fourcade has been a journalist with Sud-Ouest since 1991. During her seventeen years as a reporter, she has always attempted to highlight the extraordinary fates of often unknown people as is the case of Lazare Ponticelli with whom she had been fascinated for years.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: French
• ISBN: 2234061849
• ISBN13: 9782234061842
• Release Date: February 2018
• Publisher: Stock
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.5"