- Francisc Panet
Francisc Panet or Paneth (1907—
November 7 ,1941 ) was aRomania nchemical engineer andcommunist activist executed by the pro-Nazi authorities during theSecond World War . He was active in theRomanian Communist Party and in theCommunist Party of Czechoslovakia .Panet was born in a wealthy family in
Târgu Mureş (inAustria-Hungary at the time). He joined the local section of the Communist Party in the 1920s. In the early 1930s, he studied at the Deutsche Technische Hochschule inBrno ,Czechoslovakia , where he met other two Romanian communist activists,Valter Roman and Gabriel Mureşan. According to them, Panet had a correspondence during that time withAlbert Einstein , even visiting him inBerlin in 1932.In 1941, after the Axis attack on the Soviet Union, Panet received the task from the Romanian Communist Party to prepare
explosive material for use insabotage actions against German troops stationed in Romania. He organized a laboratory in the bathroom of his house inBucharest . In October, he was arrested along with his wife, Lili, by theSiguranţa Statului (Romania's secret police) and all explosives were confiscated. OnNovember 5 ,1941 , the couple was brought to the Jilava prison. The next day, after a two-hour long summary trial by theCourt Martial of the Military Command of Bucharest, the Panets were sentenced to death for membership in the Communist Party and for "subversive activity against the security of the state". On November 7, they were executed by a firing squad in a forest near Jilava. According to a sergeant who participated in the execution, quoted by Vasile Vaida (a cellmate), Francisc Panet began to sing "The Internationale " before being shot.References
*Valter Roman, "Albert Einstein — Francisc Panet", in "Evocări", Editura Eminescu, Bucureşti, 1980, pp. 13-26
* Nicolae Balint, [http://www.ziaruldemures.ro/fullnews.php?ID=3923 "Întâlnire cu Einstein" ("Meeting with Einstein")] in "Ziarul de Mureş ",September 19 ,2005
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