60-699: The Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d'œuvre immigrée (FTP-MOI) were a sub-group of the Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTP) organization, a component of the French Resistance . A wing composed mostly of foreigners, the MOI maintained an armed force to oppose the German occupation of France during World War II . The Main-d'œuvre immigrée was the "Immigrant Movement" of the FTP. The last surviving member of
120-679: A campaign was launched by Nicolas Daragon , mayor of Valence, Drôme , and Jean-Pierre Sakoun, president of Comité Laïcité République , and others to move Manouchian's ashes to the Panthéon . Supporters included Katia Guiragossian, a great-niece of Missak and Mélinée Manouchian, sociologist Nathalie Heinich , historian Denis Peschanski , and others. It further gained the support of the mayors of Paris and Marseille Anne Hidalgo and Benoît Payan , former French ambassador to Armenia Jonathan Lacôte , and MPs from various parties. In March 2022 Europe 1 reported that French President Emmanuel Macron
180-590: A firing squad of Nazi officers were discovered in December 2009, and Serge Klarsfeld identified them as Manouchian and his group members. The photographs began being permanently exhibited at Fort Mont-Valérien in June 2010. In June 1985, a television documentary by Mosco Boucault with the historian Stéphane Courtois working as a consultant entitled Des terroristes à la retraite ( Terrorists in Retirement )
240-469: A long list of names and addresses. This led to other arrests including "Betty" ( Madeleine Passot ), his most important liaison officer. Further names and addresses were found in Betty's apartment. Gradually the FTP developed a more military organization, with sections, companies and battalions, each containing three lower-level groups. There were often gaps in this paper organization. The FTP complained that
300-576: A major rising in Paris which played a vital role during the August 1944 Liberation of Paris . On 28 August 1944 de Gaulle put Ouzoulias in charge of the FTP and the FFI. In the autumn of 1944 Ouzoulias was charged by de Gaulle with integrating the FTP members with the regular French army. In October 1944 the communist militias were dissolved and the FTP was integrated into General de Lattre 's army. In 2019,
360-764: A meeting of the HOC in 1935, he met Mélinée Assadourian , who became his companion and, later, his wife. When the Second World War broke out in September 1939 Manouchian was arrested for his suspect communist ties, but was released in October and conscripted into the French 4th Specialist Training Company and dispatched to Brittany . After the defeat of June 1940 , he returned to Paris to find that his militant activities had become illegal. (French authorities had banned
420-567: A member of both groups. The 35th Brigade took its name from the thirty-five divisions of gunners of the International Brigades , to which Marcel (Mendel) Langer, head of the regional FTP-MOI, had claimed to belong. In February 1943, Langer was arrested carrying explosives. He was tried by the section spéciale of the Toulouse appeals court. The avocat général , Lespinasse, demanded his execution and, on 21 March 1943, Langer
480-475: A show trial for propaganda purposes before execution. Manouchian and 21 of his comrades were shot at Fort Mont-Valérien near Paris on 21 February 1944. The remaining group member, Olga Bancic , was deported to Stuttgart and beheaded there in May 1944. In his last letter to his wife, Mélinée, Manouchian said that he forgave everyone except the one who betrayed us to save his skin and those who sold us. "There
540-505: A surviving member of FTP, Edmond Réveil, revealed details of the June 1944 execution of up to 40 Nazi occupiers, taken during the Tulle uprising , along with a woman collaborator, at Le Vert , near Meymac . After delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic , forensic examination of the likely burial site only began in May 2023, initially using ground-penetrating radar . 11 bodies had been found at
600-707: Is credited with the assassination on 28 September 1943, of General Julius Ritter , the assistant in France to Fritz Sauckel , responsible for the mobilization and deportation of labor under the German STO (Obligatory Work Service) in Nazi-occupied Europe. (The attack was made by the partisans Marcel Rayman , Léo Kneller , and Celestino Alfonso .) The Manouchian group carried out almost thirty successful attacks on German interests from August to November 1943. Charles Aznavour and his family were members of
660-594: The Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTP), was an armed resistance organization created by leaders of the French Communist Party during World War II (1939–45). The communist party was neutral at first, following the Soviet Union 's official view that the war was a struggle between imperialists, but changed to a policy of armed resistance against the German occupation of France after Germany invaded
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#1732798804168720-607: The Charents Museum of Literature and Arts , were obtained at the last minute for the exhibition celebrating his transfer to the Panthéon , and exhibited although not yet exploited by French researchers, as they were written in Armenian: his great-grandniece Hasmik Manouchian read in an entry dated February 1935 that he was 25. She said that this corroborated family stories that he had made himself older by three years, as he
780-685: The Communist International (Comintern). The national manager of the MOI was Adam Rayski , who recommended members for the FTP-MOI. Members also included other immigrants, especially many young Hungarian writers, artists and intellectuals. Among them were the painter Sándor Józsa; sculptor István Hajdú (Étienne Hajdu); journalists László Kőrösi and Imre Gyomra; photographers André (Andras) Steiner , Lucien Hervé , and Ervin Marton ; and printer Ladislas Mandel . The FTP-MOI were among
840-668: The French Communist Party . From 1935 to 1937 he edited the Armenian-language left-wing weekly newspaper Zangou , named after a river in Armenia . The newspaper was anti-fascist, anti- Dashnak , anti-imperialist and pro-Soviet. Manouchian wrote poetry and, with an Armenian friend who used the pseudonym of Séma ( Kégham Atmadjian ), founded two communist-leaning literary magazines, Tchank ("Effort") and Mechagouyt ("Culture"). They published articles on French literature and Armenian culture. The two young men translated
900-571: The General Confederation of Labour ( Confédération Générale du Travail , CGT), a national association of trade unions which was the first of the five major French confederations. In the early 1930s, when the world-wide economic crisis of the Great Depression set in, Missak Manouchian lost his job. Disaffected with capitalism , he began earning a meager living by posing as a model for sculptors. In 1934, Manouchian joined
960-521: The British and Gaullists were deliberately depriving them of arms, although more likely the problem was that they did not have the necessary contacts to arrange delivery. In November 1943 Joseph Epstein , the FTP Chief of Staff, was arrested and subjected to extreme torture, but revealed nothing. This was followed by a major police operation that largely destroyed the FTP's Paris organization. From
1020-616: The Communist Party as early as September 1939.) On 22 June 1941, when the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Nazis began, Manouchian was arrested by the occupying Germans in an anti-communist round-up in Paris. Interned in a prison camp at Compiègne , he was released after a few weeks without being charged, thanks to the efforts of his wife, Mélinée Assadourian. In early 1943 he was recruited by Boris Milev . Manouchian became
1080-475: The FTP ensured that French communists regained their reputation as an effective anti-fascist force. Arthur Dallidet was placed in charge of security. Dallidet was recognized talking to a woman in a cafe beside the Reuilly metro station on the evening on 28 February 1942. He was arrested, taken to La Santé Prison , chained, handcuffed and severely beaten. He did not reveal any information, but had been carrying
1140-496: The FTP retained its de facto independence. During the Allied Normandy Campaign the FTP conducted delaying actions in the center and southwest of France against the German troops who had been recalled to the battle zone. From June to August 1944 Ouzoulias coordinated the FTP's military action in the Paris region. Ouzoulias and Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy , who led the Île-de-France Resistance movement, planned
1200-608: The FTP-MOI's Manouchian Group , resistance fighter Arsène Tchakarian , died in August 2018. The FTP-MOI groups were organized in the Paris region in 1941, at the same time as the Francs-tireurs et partisans . Their ranks were filled with foreign communists living in France who were not part of the French Communist Party . Although integrated with the FTP , these groups depended directly on Jacques Duclos , who passed on orders from
1260-530: The French national political climate. The Parisian groups were initially led by Boris Holban , then the poet turned activist Missak Manouchian . After Manouchian was arrested in 1943 and executed in February 1944, Holban took over again. The FTP-MOI are particularly well known because of the highly publicized trial of numerous members of the Manouchian Group. Tracked, arrested and interrogated by
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#17327988041681320-514: The French police, the show trial of the 23 members was held in front of a German military tribunal at the Hôtel Continental . It began on 17 February 1944, lasted between two and four days, and after a 30-minute deliberation, the court reached the following verdict: All of the accused were condemned to death, with no possibility of appeal. All but two were shot immediately on 21 February at Mont-Valérien . The execution of Olga Bancic
1380-610: The Germans by the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in July 1942 in which Jews in Paris and other parts of France were arrested, detained and then deported to be killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp . The violence of the FTP-MOI in their struggle for survival did not always coincide with the interests of the French people. They received little recognition in France after the war. The FTP-MOI were
1440-547: The Gestapo, was the informer who betrayed Manouchian. Davidowicz was later killed by fellow resistance members, who accused him of spying for the Germans. Following World War II, Armenians were perceived in France positively "solely in the reflective light of Missak Manouchian, who played an important role in the French anti-Nazi resistance." Manouchian is a prominent figure in the bilateral relations between Armenia and France . In 2007, an exhibition dedicated to Manouchian
1500-511: The Kremlin and that Holban had betrayed the groupe Manouchian on orders from Moscow. The French journalist Alexandre Adler , in a series of articles in the Socialist newspaper Le Matin , defended Holban, arguing that he was not in Paris in the fall of 1943 and thus was not in a position to know the address of Manouchian or anyone else in his group. Adler drew attention to a 1980 article in
1560-530: The Manouchian group with their names, photos and alleged crimes; it became known as l'Affiche Rouge . The Germans distributed thousands of copies of the poster around the city to encourage Parisians to think of the partisans as criminal foreigners and "not French", and discourage resistance; instead, the red posters inspired citizens to more actions. Some marked the posters with phrases such as Morts pour la France! (They died for France.) The group in Paris
1620-450: The Manouchian resistance group, and were recognized after the war for rescuing Jews and Armenians from Nazi persecution. On 16 November 1943, the collaborationist French police forces arrested the Manouchian group at Évry-Petit Bourg . His companion, Mélinée, managed to escape the police. Manouchian and the others were tortured to gain information, and eventually handed over to the Germans' Geheime Feldpolizei (GFP). The 23 were given
1680-548: The Missak Manouchian Park was opened in central Yerevan , the Armenian capital, in attendance of Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Hollande. On 5 March 1955, a street named for the Manouchian Group ( fr ) was dedicated in the 20th arrondissement of Paris . In 1978, a statue of Manouchian sculpted by Ara Harutyunyan was opened in the military cemetery of Ivry-sur-Seine , Paris . A commemorative plaque
1740-696: The Nazis at Fort Mont-Valérien on 21 February 1944. He is considered a hero of the French Resistance and was entombed in the Panthéon in Paris. Manouchian is registered as being born on 1 September 1906 in Adıyaman , in Mamuret-ul-Aziz Vilayet , Ottoman Empire into an Armenian peasant family. It was discovered in February 2024 that he was in fact born in 1909, when pages from his notebooks, discovered in May 2023 by his family at
1800-586: The Romanian journal Magazin istoric by the FTP-MOI intelligence chief Cristina Luca Boico , where she mentions that Holban was leading a maquis band in the Ardennes in November 1943 and had not been in Paris for some time. L'Affaire Manouchian was finally settled in the 1990s when French police records were opened, revealing that Joseph Davidowicz, a resistance fighter who was arrested and then released by
1860-478: The Soviet Union in June 1941. Three groups were formed, consisting of party members, young communists and foreign workers. Early in 1942 they were merged to form the FTP, which undertook sabotage and assassinations of the occupation. The FTP became the best organized and most effective of the French Resistance groups. In March 1944, before the Allied forces returned to Normandy, the FTP was theoretically merged with
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1920-402: The central organization in groups of three, a basic principle in the communist Resistance. In the field, each group would consist of two groups of three or four men under a commander and his assistant. For as long as possible they would continue to work in their normal occupations, only coming together to undertake an operation and then if possible returning to their normal daily life. Ouzoulias
1980-526: The early 1920s he settled in an Armenian General Benevolent Union -run orphanage in Jounieh , Lebanon , then a French protectorate . He acquired education there and in 1925 moved to France. Eventually, Manouchian settled in Paris, where he took a job as a lathe operator at a Citroën plant. During this period he was self-educated and often visited libraries in the Latin Quarter . He joined
2040-571: The end of 1943 the national organization began to intensify preparation for a national uprising to support the expected Allied landings in Europe. By 1944, the FTP had an estimated strength of 100,000 men. In March 1944 General Charles de Gaulle placed all the French Forces of the Interior ( Forces françaises de l'intérieur , FFI). under the authority of General Marie-Pierre Kœnig , but
2100-594: The most active and determined of the resistance groups; particularly because they were foreigners and mostly Jews, they were under the direct watch of the Vichy regime and the Germans. Without maintaining strict secrecy, they risked internment , deportation and death. Because they depended directly on the Comintern, with Duclos as their intermediary, they were often on the front line when the order to fight came from Moscow . The various French groups were more attentive to
2160-476: The other Resistance groups. In practice, it retained its independence until the end of the war. Germany attacked the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 in Operation Barbarossa . With this, the policy of the French Communist Party ( Parti communiste français , PCF) switched to support for armed struggle against the German occupiers. The National Front ( Front national de l'indépendance de la France )
2220-596: The poetry of Baudelaire , Verlaine , and Rimbaud into Armenian, making many of these works available in Armenian for the first time. Both Manouchian and Séma enrolled at the Sorbonne to follow courses in literature, philosophy, economics, and history. The following year, he was elected secretary of the Relief Committee for Armenia (HOC), an organization associated with the MOI (Immigrant Workforce Movement). At
2280-500: The political chief of the Armenian section of the underground MOI, but little is known about his activities until 1943. In February of that year, Manouchian transferred to the FTP-MOI, a group of gunmen and saboteurs attached to the MOI in Paris. Manouchian became the leader of the FTP-MOI in June/August 1943, replacing Boris Holban . Manouchian assumed command of three detachments, totaling about 50 fighters. The Manouchian group
2340-474: The population defend itself against the " boches ". The FTP was created in April 1942, led by Charles Tillon. On 3 April 1942 L'Humanité used the expression " Francs-Tireurs et Partisans " for the first time, and in following weeks reported acts of sabotage of war production and attacks against German soldiers and French collaborators . The paper began using the initials FTP in July 1942. The FTP's mandate
2400-479: The site in 1967; by August 2023 artefacts had been unearthed, but no further bodies. Missak Manouchian Missak Manouchian ( Armenian : Միսաք Մանուշեան ; pronounced [misɑkʰ manuʃjɑn] , 1 September 1909 – 21 February 1944) was a French - Armenian poet and communist activist. A survivor of the 1915–1916 Armenian genocide , he moved to France from an orphanage in Lebanon in 1925. He
2460-474: The target of the notorious Affiche Rouge poster campaign, which emphasised the composition of the group's membership in an attempt to discredit the Resistance as not "French" enough. The campaign seems to have had the effect of highlighting their feats to the general public as freedom fighters. The military strength of the communists was still relatively feeble at the end of 1941, but the rapid growth of
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2520-512: Was a proponent of quick strikes against carefully studied targets by small groups of fighters, who would then rapidly withdraw. He also drew up guidelines for urban warfare in which FTP units could attack greatly superior German forces and be protected while they withdrew. Tillon called this a strategy of "drops of mercury", through which the group could use surprise and mobility to achieve transient superiority before disappearing. The FTP-MOI ( Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d'œuvre immigrée )
2580-516: Was active in communist Armenian literary circles. During World War II, he became the military commissioner of FTP-MOI , a group consisting of European immigrants, including many Jews, in the Paris Region which carried out assassinations and bombings of Nazi targets. According to one author, the Manouchian group was the most active one of the French Resistance . Manouchian and many of his comrades were arrested in November 1943 and executed by
2640-472: Was aired. The documentary started an intense dispute over the identity of the informer who betrayed Manouchian and the rest of groupe Manouchian in 1943. In the documentary, Mélinée Manouchian accused Boris Holban of being the informer. In the 1986 book L'Affaire Manouchian by Philippe Robrieux, Holban was accused of being a member of an "ultra-secret special apparatus" within the PCF that took its orders from
2700-506: Was commanded by Boris Holban from April 1942 to July 1943. From July 1943 to November 1943, the group was led by Joseph Epstein and Missak Manouchian . Holban commanded the group again from December 1943 to August 1944. The armed group had the following members: The armed group Carmagnole in Lyon and the armed group Liberté in Grenoble had the following members: Herbert Herz was
2760-571: Was consensus that they were betrayed by one of their number, Joseph Davidovitch [ fr ] , who was arrested and tortured by the Nazis (before being released and shot by the Resistance). But some survivors also felt the French Communist Party had sacrificed the unit by refusing to smuggle vital Jewish combatants out of Paris after the French police began to tail them." Photographs of French Resistance agents facing
2820-407: Was created as a French Resistance movement in the northern area in June 1941. The Front national was theoretically independent of the PCF, but in reality it was dominated by the PCF. At first the objectives were mainly political, taking advantage of the unstable situation under the occupying German army. Charles Tillon was put in charge of military matters. On 2 August 1941 Albert Ouzoulias
2880-677: Was created in the spring of 1942 with four detachments made up of communists of "immigrant" origin. Most of its fighters were Jews from France, Hungary, Romania or elsewhere in Europe. Some were former volunteers in the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). Leaflets and publications were issued in Yiddish. Although integrated with the FTP, the FTP-MOI groups retained their autonomy, which caused problems at times. The FTP-MOI were aroused to violent reprisals against
2940-547: Was held at the Musée Jean Moulin in Paris in the scope of the Year of Armenia in France. On 21 February 2014, on the 70th anniversary of the execution of Manouchian and his group, a commemoration ceremony was held at Fort Mont-Valérien. Notable attendees included French President François Hollande , Armenian foreign minister Eduard Nalbandyan and prominent French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour . On 13 March 2014,
3000-539: Was immediately recognized as a hero in the Soviet Union. Soviet Armenian author Marietta Shaginyan described him as an "example of an Armenian who preserved his nationality, and at the same time became a class-conscious worker and a militant communist in his adopted country." Russian poet Sergei Shervinsky hailed him in a 1956 Ogoniok article as a "Fighter, Worker, Poet". A school in Yerevan , Armenia—founded in 1947—was named for Manouchian in 1963. In January 2022
3060-801: Was installed on 22 February 2009 at 11 rue de Plaisance, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris . The old hotel at this address was the last home shared by Manouchian and his wife, Mélinée. In February 2010, busts of Manouchian were inaugurated in Marseille , in a square named after him, and in Issy-les-Moulineaux . In June 2014, the memorial in Marseille was defaced with a swastika. Two far-right activists, who admitted their participation, were sentenced to 100 hours of community service in January 2015. Due to his communist ideology, Manouchian
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#17327988041683120-428: Was not 18 when he arrived in France, but 15, too young to be allowed to work. The historian Denis Peschanski, who curated the exhibition, pointed out that this was relatively common for immigrants to France at the time. His tomb at the Panthéon, installed a short time before, is engraved with the date 1906. His parents were killed during the Armenian genocide of 1915, but he and his brother managed to survive. In
3180-418: Was planning pantheonization of Manouchian. A close presidential adviser was quoted as saying: "This file is at the top of the pile." Le Monde reported Macron met with supporters of the campaign on March 30, 2022 at the Élysée Palace and several days later, Macron said of Manouchian: "I think he is a very great figure and that makes a lot of sense." Missak Manouchian and his wife Mélinée were entombed in
3240-439: Was put in charge of the Bataillons de la Jeunesse , fighting groups that were being created by the Jeunesses Communistes . Soon after, Arthur Dallidet introduced him to Eugène Hénaff , who was responsible for the armed struggle under the direction of Tillon. In October 1941 the PCF decided to unify its armed groups into the Organisation spéciale . Hénaff joined the leadership of the PCF's Organisation Spéciale , where he
3300-473: Was replaced by René Camphin [ fr ] . Albert Ouzoulias was in charge of operations, and Georges Beyer was responsible for armaments and recruitment. Marcel Prenant [ fr ] , a captain of the reserve, was Chief of Staff. He wrote some of the manuals on tactics and armament, but his main role was to act as liaison between the FTP and the Gaullist resistance groups. The inter-regional and departmental military committees reported to
3360-447: Was responsible for coordinating between the various armed units. He was a member of the Comité militaire national , which became the Francs-tireurs et partisans français (FTPF). Rather than limit armed action to Communists, it was decided to create a non-Communist organization, the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP), under the Front national . The FTP was open to non-communists but operated under communist control. The FTP movement
3420-406: Was seen as a way to increase the political influence of the Communist Party in the future government of France. A special issue of L'Humanité in February 1942 confirmed the existence of "partisans et de francs-tireurs" (partisans and free-shooters) to whom patriots should give aid and assistance. Another special issue in March 1942 urged people to form such groups to conduct guerrilla war and help
3480-549: Was sentenced to death. He was executed on 23 July 1943. The 35th Brigade then called themselves the Brigade Marcel Langer in his honor. Eighteen members were arrested by the Vichy police and handed over to the Germans. Two died of unknown causes on the train transporting them to be deported. Four were shot. (*) Former member of the 35 Brigade FTP-MOI "Marcel Langer" Francs-tireurs et partisans The Francs-tireurs et partisans français ( French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃ tiʁœʁ e paʁtizɑ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛ] , FTPF), or commonly
3540-425: Was suspended for further enquiry and because French law prohibited executing women by firing squad. In a new sentence passed on her birthday of 10 May 1944 at Stuttgart , she was condemned to death. She was beheaded shortly after the sentencing. One accused, Migratulski, was transferred to French jurisdiction. Following the trial and executions, the Germans created a poster with a red background, featuring ten men of
3600-406: Was to sabotage railways and factories, punish collaborators and assassinate German soldiers. The FTP unified three Communist organizations, the Bataillons de la Jeunesse , the Organisation Spéciale and the Main-d'œuvre immigrée (MOI). The FTP national committee was headed by Charles Tillon , commander in chief. Eugène Hénaff was political commissioner of the force until May 1943, when he
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