- Wolf Wajsbrot
Wolf Wajsbrot (3 March 1925 - 21 February 1944) was a member of the French Resistance under the Nazi occupation. Born in the Polish town of
Kraśnik , his parents moved to France, eventually settling inParis , shortly after his birth due to increasinganti-semitism and a worsening economic climate. [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/idcard.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10006471]In 1939, the year
Germany invaded Poland and war was declared, Wajsbrot gained his school leaving certificate and began training to be a mechanic. [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/idcard.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10006471] Following the Nazi occupation of Paris, Wajsbrot's parents were arrested in theRafle du Vel' d'Hiv and deported on 16 July 1942. Wajsbrot joined the Communist resistance group "Francs-tireurs et partisans - Main-d'œuvre immigrée " shortly afterwards and proved to be a key member in the violent actions they brought against the occupiers. [Jewish Currents, Vol. 56, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 2002) ] 6 days after his eighteenth birthday, Wajsbrot threw a grenade into a train carriage reserved for German soldiers, causing (according to an eye-witness) "undescribable damage" [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=M97m1tD272UC&pg=PA270&dq=Wolf+Wajsbrot&sig=ACfU3U3ks419L2-ObZzQHdtXfteX0nyVqA] .By mid 1943, however, the Germans had begun to close in on the Franc-Tireurs et Partisans. Following the capture of one of the group's leaders and the subsequent information gained from his torture, the remaining of the members of his cell (Wajsbrot among them) were captured in November 1943. Between his capture and subsequent trial in February of the following year, Wajsbrot was interrogated and
torture d. After a one-daytrial he was condemned to death. On the afternoon of 21 February 1944, at the age of eighteen, Wajsbrot was executed at Mont Valerian.He is buried in the Parisian Cemetery of Ivry under the words "Mort pout la France" (died for France). [http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history/france/resistance/manouchian/manouchian-group.htm]
Notes
External Links
* [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/idcard.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10006471 "Wolf Wajsbrot" United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, May 20, 2008]
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