The founder of the French car factory Citroën was born on February 5, 1878, to a Jewish family in Paris. His grandfather was a Dutch lemon seller, so he took his last name Citroen, which in Dutch means lemon. André’s father moved from Amsterdam to Paris and his mother was Jewish from Warsaw.
André Citroën founded his car factory in 1919. He launched the first mass production of cars outside the US. By the early 1930s, it had already become the 4th largest automaker in the world. Citroën has introduced many innovations in the automotive industry. Thus, the Citroën Traction Avant was the first mass-produced front-wheel drive car. The famous Citroën DS (Frog) was the first with hydropneumatic suspension and many other innovative solutions. A stiff rival to André Citroën was Louis Renault, who was anti-Semitic.
