Théophile Bader (24 April 1864 – 16 March 1942), co-founder of Galeries Lafayette, was a French businessman and art collector whose family was persecuted during the Nazi occupation of France because of their Jewish heritage.
After the 1870 defeat and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Prussia, the Baders, very attached to France, moved to Belfort where Théophile continued his studies.
[8] Théophile Bader, Raoul Meyer, Max Heilbronn, the store's administrators and 129 Jewish employees were forced to resign.
[9][10][11] The Galeries Lafayette group was transferred to non-Jewish owners: the Swiss Aubert and the French industrialist Harlachol.
[1] After the victory over Nazi Germany, Bader's son in law, Max Heilbronn, founder of Monoprix, was released from Buchenwald where he had been interned.
[10] His other son-in-law, Raoul Meyer, filed a claim against the art dealer Christoph Bernoulli demanding the restitution of one of the artworks seized during the Nazi occupation of France, "Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep", by Camille Pissarro; however, the claim was unsuccessful[13] In 2012, Bader's granddaughter, Ginette Heilbronn Moulin, filed a criminal complaint against the Wildenstein art dealing family concerning a Monet that had been looted under the Nazis along with nine other paintings that had belonged to her father Max Heilbronn.