Acting

Joël Holmès

Joël Holmès (1 August 1928 – 2 September 2009) was a Romanian-born French singer-songwriter. Joël Holmès was born under the name Joël Covrigaru in 1928 in Tighina, where his parents moved from Akkermansky Uyezd (father from the city of Izmail, mother from the village of Talmaza) of the Russian Empire (which owned the zone until 1918). In 1934, Holmès moved to France with his parents. During World War II, his parents Michel Covrigaru (1892–1942) and Hana Ehrlich (1898–1942), as foreign nationals of Jewish origin, were interned in the Drancy concentration camp, from where on 28 September 1942 they were deported to Auschwitz and killed on arrival on 3 October the same year. Joel himself was sheltered by a familiar family until the end of the occupation. After the war, he changed several professions (including working as an electrician and a photographer), then entered the theater department of Le Petit Conservatoire de la chanson Mireille Artyush. Since 1954 he has performed in various Parisian cabarets (Milord l'Arsouille, Cabaret L'Écluse) with Pia Colombo, Maurice Fanon, Georges Moustaki and Jean Ferrat.