(24th October 1899: Port-au-Prince, Haiti - 20th November 1962: Cormeilles-en-Parisis, Val-d'Oise)

Philippe Kieffer was Alsatian by birth through his teacher father, whose family had fled from Otterswiller to Jamaica following the German annexation of 1870, and British through his mother. Having only just completed his studies as a reserve officer in 1918, nothing short of a literally Rhinian throwback to shed his blood for his homeland could have predisposed him for a career in the armed services. A graduate of the Upper College of Business Studies, he had followed a career as a banker in North America until the age of forty. However, he volunteered as a reserve officer at the beginning of the Second World War. On the 10th September 1939 he was a sub- lieutenant in the navy after a first tour of duty in the land army, carrying out the role of interpreter on board the battleship Courbet. At Dunkirk, assigned to Admiral Nord's general staff, he witnessed the invasion of the Wehrmacht in May 1940 and on the 19th June decided to support General de Gaulle in London. He joined the ranks of the Free French (France Libre) Naval Forces on the very day they were created, the 1st July 1940. As an Interpreter and Cipher Officer, he understood the importance of British commandos and set up a unit of French Naval Fusiliers in Portsmouth in May 1941: the 1st Company of the Battalion of Marine Fusilier Commandos (1re compagnie du bataillon de fusiliers-marins commandos or BFMC). Trained at the commando training centre in Achnacarry, it did not take long for the twenty or so volunteers to become involved in the operations of the 2nd Unit of British Commandos: promoted to Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant on the 1st July 1942, Kieffer led his men to Dieppe on the 19th August 1942. The BFM, increased by a company, took part in preparatory raids in Normandy with a view to landing in 1943, covering themselves with even more glory the following year in Lieutenant Colonel Dawson's famous 4th British Commandos belonging to General Lord Lovat's 1st Brigade. On the 6th June, his Green Berets landed on "Sword" beach in Ouistreham, breaking through in Colleville, Saint-Aubin-d'Arquenay, Amfreville and Bavant to join up with British airborne troops at Benouville (Pegasus Bridge). Wounded at the beginning of the assault, the Lieutenant Commander remained with his comrades in arms for a further two days before being evacuated, rejoining his unit on the 13th July for the advance on Honfleur.

From Normandy, he rushed to Paris with two of his men and was the first to enter the city. In October 1944, his battalion, increased by a company, was sent to the Netherlands for an assault on the island of Walcheren. His marine fusiliers took Flessinge, the key to the port of Anvers, continuing the liberation of the Dutch islands through concerted operations with British commandos. At the end of the war, he was on the inter-allied general staff before leaving active service to work on the reconstruction of the country on the 1945consultative committee, becoming involved on a local level with terms in office as General Councillor for the Calvados region (September 1945 - June 1946) and Town Councillor for Grandcamp-les-Bains. He published his book of memoirs, Béret vert (Green Beret) in 1948 and was appointed Captain of Frigate six years later in 1954. He was an advisor for the film The Longest Day in 1965 before he died on the 20th November the same year. He was laid to rest in the cemetery at Grandcamp-les-Bains. In homage to this servant of France, the 6th Battalion of Commandos, established on the 6th June 2008, bears the name of Marine Commando "Kieffer". Located in Lorient, this company specialising in new technologies is a strong maritime unit belonging to the force of marine fusiliers and commandos (force des fusiliers marins et commandos or FORFUSCO).

Born in the village of Bazorkino in Georgia (the Shida Kartli region), Dimitri Amilakvari was a Prince of the House of Zedguinidze and Grand Master of the Horse to the Georgian Crown. The Brest-Litovsk treaty and the Revolution sounded the death knell for Tsarist Russia and allowed the Kartvel nation to declare independence on the 26th May 1918. However, the young social democratic republic did not take long to falter under pressure from the Russian Bolsheviks and the threat from Turkey on the South West border (Erzurum). On the 25th February 1921, the Red Army finally took over Transcaucasia and the Federation of Soviet Socialist Republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) was created. The tsarist and republican elite were hunted down. The Amilakvari family thus went into exile: to Constantinople and then France; Dimitri was then only about ten years old. As a descendent of the titled Georgian nobility (his grandfather, Ivane was a General and his father, Prince Giorgi was a colonel in the army of the Democratic Republic of Georgia), Dimitri Amilakvari was admitted to the Saint-Cyr military academy in 1924.

He left two years later and enlisted in the Foreign Legion: first posted to the 1st RE in Sidi-Bel-Abbès and then in 1929 to the 4th RE in Marrakech, with whom he took part in the High Atlas campaign, distinguishing himself in May 1932 during the battles of Ait Attou. He was cited again the following year during the battles of Jebel Baddou. Promoted to captain of the 1st RE of Sidi-Bel-Abbès in 1939 and then of the 2nd high mountain battalion group in February 1940, he then took French nationality. It was with the 13th Half-brigade of the Foreign Legion that he saw action in the Second World War. He took part in the operations of the expeditionary corps in Norway, as commander of the company of accompaniment of the 2nd battalion. A valorous soldier, Dimitri Amilakvari won three more citations, which earned him promotion to the dignity of Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur.

A man of honour and strong convictions, "Bazorka", as he liked to be called, in honour of the village where he was born, decided in June 1940 to take up the fight alongside General de Gaulle. Three days after returning to the Brittany coast, on the 19th June, he set sail from Saint-Jacut de la Mer with a few men from the 13th, reaching England on the 21st via the island of Jersey. Dimitri Amilakvari returned to Dakar in September 1940 as a Legionnaire in the FFL to take part in operation "Menace", before leaving to try to conquer the Pétanist AOF (Gabon and Cameroon), to rally Eritrea and then the Levant territories. "Bazorka" joined the Eastern Brigade at the beginning of 1941 and took part, at the head of the company of accompaniment of the 1st Battalion of the Foreign Legion, in the victory of Keren (March 1941) and the taking of Massaouah (8th April). He distinguished himself once again during the Syrian campaign in June 1941 and was promoted to Head of Battalion. On the 16th September he took command of the 13th DBLE and, a week later, was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. A valiant soldier and leader of men, he reorganised his troops, training them for war in the desert, for which on the 19th October 1941 he would be presented the flag of the 13th by General Catroux at Homs.

Involved from the start of the Libyan campaign, "Bazorka" commanded a Jock column: a tactical group comprising units of motorised infantry, a battery of towed artillery, a platoon of automatic machine gunners, a section of 75 mm anti-tank canons and light DCA engineering and radio communications units. He proved his audacity and bravery alongside General Koenig (1st BFL) during the battle of Bir-Hakeim (26th May - 11th June 1942). General de Gaulle personally awarded him the Liberation Cross at the El Tahag camp (Egypt) on the 10th August 1942. At the beginning of October 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Amilakvari and his two battalions faced divisions of Rommel's Afrika Korps in the El Alamein area of Egypt. They were sent on ahead for the attack on the 80 metre high Himeimat peak. This mission was accomplished on the morning of the 24th October, when German panzers led a counter-offensive. His units beat a retreat under enemy fire through the middle of a minefield. "Bazorka", with his machine gun on his arm, was hit in the head by a shell. At El Alamein, on the very spot where he died, a white cross reminds us of the courage and sacrifice of this Franco-Georgian Prince, a mythical figure of the Foreign Legion and the godfather of the 143rd class to graduate from St Cyr. On Sunday the 19th November 2006, the 100th anniversary of his birth, Georgians and French attended the inauguration rue Amilakvari in the provincial town of Gori, as well as a room in the local ethnographic museum.

An exceptional man, a soldier who rose through the ranks who "will belong forevermore belong to history" (Michel Debré) ...

From an old family from the Alsace and the son of an organ maker, Pierre Koenig was born on the 10th October 1898 in Caen (Calvados). He was educated by the brethren of the Christian Schools. With his baccalaureate in his pocket, he enlisted voluntarily to serve his country and on the 17th April 1917 was appointed to the 36th infantry regiment (régiment d'infanterie or RI). Completing his training in 1918, he took part in the Battle of Flanders in May, the Battle of Matz in June and July, followed by the Oise offensive in August and September and the clash on the Ailette the following month. An exemplary soldier, he was cited in the Order of the Army on the 26th September 1918 and received the military medal. Once the war was over, Pierre Koenig decided to take up a career in the armed forces. He joined the 15th battalion of Alpine Chasseurs, serving in High Silesia and in the Ruhr (1919 to 1922), earning his lieutenant's stripes in 1920, before being transferred to the Alps (1922-1923). He then served as an information officer at the headquarters of the 40th and 43rd infantry division of occupation troops in Germany until 1929. After two years in the 5th RI in Paris, he was sent to Morocco as company commander of the 4th Foreign Regiment (1931-1934) to lead peacekeeping operations in the protectorate. On detachment to General Catroux in Marrakech, Captain Koenig led various inland operations when war broke out in September 1939.

In February 1940, he participated, along with detached units of the 13th brigade of the Foreign Legion (brigade de la Légion étrangère or DBLE) from North Africa, in the Norwegian expeditionary corps where he distinguished himself during the battles of Namsos. On returning to France, he witnessed the arrival of the Wehrmacht in Brest on the 15th June 1940. Not accepting the surrender of the French army, he decided to go to London with a few comrades from the 13th. He set sail on the 19th June from Saint-Jacut de la Mer, reaching the British coast on the 21st.

Promoted to Head of Battalion on the 1st July, he took part in the unsuccessful Dakar expedition with his comrades from the 13th DBLE and then in operation "Menace", taking back Gabon from the allies of the Vichy government in November, before being appointed Commander of Cameroon in December 1940. "Mutin", to use his war name, joined the FFL in the English-speaking Sudan the following month before taking the Levant territories at the beginning of 1941. Now Lieutenant Colonel, he was General Legentilhomme's Chief of Staff during the Syrian campaign and appointed as a delegate for the Free French at the Saint-Jean d'Acre Armistice Commission, following the surrender of General Dentz. Temporarily promoted to Brigade General, he worked on reorganising the Free French troops of the Levant.

Commander of the 1st light division of the FFL (or the 1st BFL), he joined the 8th British Army, fought in Libya, at Halfaya (December 1941 and January 1942), at Mechili (February 1942) and Bir-Hakeim (February-June 1942). He carried out his mission in the face of Rommel's Afrika Korps to "hold out at all costs, until our victory is decisive" (the message from Koenig to his troops on the morning of the 3rd June) for 14 days, from the 27th May until the 10th June 1942, allowing the British army to regroup at Alexandria: "by stopping the German advance, they [Pierre Koenig and his men] bought us some time, allowing us to bring troops from Palestine and cover Egypt" Winston Churchill acknowledged. General de Gaulle awarded him the Liberation Cross for this great wartime feat.

Preceded by his reputation, Koenig took part in the victory over troops of the axis at El Alamein in October 1942. Then, supporting General de Larminat, he led his troops in the conquest of Libya and Tunisia. At the beginning of August 1943, he carried out the role of Deputy chief of staff of the army in Algiers. His mission was to bring unity, easing the tensions between the North African and Free French troops. From March 1944, General Koenig arrived on the political and diplomatic scene: he was appointed as delegate for the temporary government of the French Republic (le Gouvernement provisoire de la République française or GPRF) alongside General Eisenhower, the Superior Commander of the French forces in Great Britain and Commander of the French Forces of the interior (Forces françaises de l'intérieur or FFI).

He was responsible in particular for persuading the Allies to parachute in weapons to the FFI in preparation for the Normandy landings, thus contributing to the coordination of the regular troops and the guerrilla action of the Résistance. Appointed General of the army corps on the 28th June 1944, he became the first military Governor of Paris in liberated France on the 25th August.

Commanding the French Forces in Germany (July 1945 to August 1949), he received his army general's stars on the 20th May 1946 and was then promoted to the dignity of Grand-Croix de la Légion d'Honneur. Inspector of the land, sea and air forces of North Africa and Vice President of the Upper War Council, he was elected to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences and a member of the European consultative assembly in 1951. Keen to participate in republican activities, Pierre Koenig was elected MP for the Bas-Rhin region in 1951 (he would be re-elected in 1956), and accepted the presidency of the National Defence Committee of the National Assembly (August 1951 to June 1954). He then joined Mendès-France's government, for whom he took the portfolio of the Department of Defence from June to August 1954, a position he would occupy again in Edgar Faure's cabinet (February - October 1955). He left political life in 1958.

Pierre Koenig died on the 2nd September 1970 at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He was buried in the Montmartre cemetery in Paris following a state funeral at the Eglise Saint-Louis des Invalides. An exceptional man and member of the council of the Order of the Liberation, Pierre Koenig was posthumously promoted by decree to the dignity of Marshall of France on the 6th June 1984.

A 16-year-old student at Lycée Victor Hugo in Besançon, Henri Fertet was arrested by the Germans on 3 July 1943 and sentenced to death for resistance activities by the Feldkommandantur 560 military court. He was executed on 26 September 1943.

Henri Fertet was born on 27 October 1926 in Seloncourt, Doubs, into a family of schoolteachers.

Once he had completed primary school, he left his home town in 1937 to attend Lycée Victor Hugo in Besançon. He was a gifted, hard-working student who was interested in archaeology and history. Living under the yoke of the Nazis since the armistice of June 1940, Fertet was inspired by the example of the subjects of his studies and joined the group led by Marcel Simon, secretary of the Catholic Rural Youth movement in Larnod, in the summer of 1942.

In February 1943, the Simon group joined the Franc-Tireurs et Partisans, calling itself the Groupe-Franc “Guy Mocquet”. It carried out underground actions.

Fertet (registered as Émile - 702) led three operations:

• an attack on the guardhouse at Fort de Montfaucon on 16 April 1943 to seize an explosives magazine, killing a German sentry;
• the destruction of a high-voltage pylon at Châteaufarine, near Besançon, on 7 May; and
• an attack on the German customs commissioner, Rothe, on the Besançon-Quingey road on 12 June 1943, to steal his weapon, his uniform and the papers he was carrying.

Fertet shot the commissioner, mortally wounding him, but was unable to steal the documents as a motorcycle pulled up. The members of the group were actively sought and were successively arrested starting in June 1943.

Fertet was arrested by the German forces on 3 July 1943: it was three in the morning and the young man was sleeping at his parents’ home at the Besançon-Velotte school. The youngest of the accused at just 16 years of age, he was sent to La Butte prison in Besançon. He appeared before the Feldkommandantur 560 military court and was sentenced to death on 18 September 1943. After 87 days of captivity and torture, this “soulmate” of Guy Mocquet was executed on 26 September 1943 in the Besançon citadel.

Like Mocquet, he sent his parents one last letter:

“My dear Parents, 

My letter is going to cause you great suffering, but I have seen your tremendous courage and I am sure that you will continue to be courageous, if only out of love for me. 

You cannot know how much I have mentally suffered in my cell, how I have suffered from not seeing you, from only feeling your tender kindness from a distance. For these 87 days in my cell, I have missed your love more than your packages, and I have often asked for your forgiveness for the suffering I have caused you, all the suffering I have caused you. Have no doubt as to how much I love you today because, before, I loved you more out of routine, but now I understand everything you have done for me and I think I have achieved true filial love, real filial love. Maybe a comrade will talk to you about me, about the love I told him about. I hope he will fulfil this sacred mission. 

Please thank everyone who has been thinking about me, especially our closest friends and relatives; tell them how confident I am in eternal France. Give a kiss to my grandparents, my uncles, aunts and cousins, Henriette. Shake Mr Duvernet’s hand for me; say hello to all. Tell our priest that I have been thinking of him and his family in particular. I would like to thank Monseigneur for the great honour he gave me, I hope I have been worthy of it. As I fall, I also send my regards to my schoolmates. Talking of whom, Hennemann owes me a packet of cigarettes, Jacquin my book on prehistoric man. Please return “The Count of Monte Cristo” to Émourgeon, 3 Chemin Français, behind the station. Give Maurice André, of La Maltournée, the 40 grams of tobacco I owe him.

I leave my little library to Pierre, my schoolbooks to my dear daddy, my collections by my dear mummy, but she should be careful with the prehistoric hatchet and the Gaulish sword sheath. 

I am dying for my motherland. I want a free France and a happy French people. Not a proud France, the leading nation in the world, but a working France, hard-working and honest. 

May the French people be happy, that is what counts most. In life, you have to know how to enjoy your happiness.

As for me, do not worry. I will keep my courage and my good humour to the end, and I will sing “Sambre et Meuse” because you, my dear mummy, taught it to me.

Be strict and tender with Pierre. Check his work and make him work hard. Do not accept any slacking. He must be worthy of me. Of three children, he is the only one left. He must succeed. 

Papa, please pray. Think that, if I die, it is for my own good. What more honourable death could there be? I die gladly for my motherland. The four of us will see each other again, soon, in Heaven.  What is a hundred years?

Mummy, remember: 

“And these avengers will have new defenders who, after their death, will have successors.”

Farewell, death is calling me. I do not want to be blindfolded or bound. I send my love to you all. Still, it is hard to die.

Love to you. Long live France! 

Sentenced to death at age 16 

H. Fertet

Forgive the spelling mistakes, no time to reread. 

From: Henri Fertet, in Heaven, with God.”

Source: Ordre de la Libération - MINDEF/SGA/DMPA

Born in Monaco on 29 December 1906, Jean Vuillermoz was initiated into music at an early age by his father, the famous horn player Édouard Vuillermoz.

After moving to Paris at age 19 to study at the Conservatoire National, he became a composer, conductor and radio producer. He also penned some superb harmonisations of folk songs for mixed choir (two 16th-century songs) and male-voice choir (three Renaissance songs, with orchestral accompaniment).

Among the most significant works by Vuillermoz are a “Concerto for horn and orchestra”, the ballet “Veglione”, the cantata for choirs and orchestra on a poem by Anatole France, “Ode à la lumière”, and the orchestral suite “Le Tombeau d’Anna Favlova”.

The most notable of his divertimenti for orchestra is the “Promenade zoologique” – humorous tableaux evoking life at Vincennes zoo, near the composer’s home. Little of his compositional work was published, most remaining in the form of manuscripts in elegant, careful calligraphy, dating from the years preceding the Second World War.

Jean Vuillermoz was a sensitive artist, an enthusiast who gave his all without seeking fame or fortune.

He was particularly attached to his family, and his wife and three children were sacred to him.

A member of the 22nd Fortress Infantry Regiment, he was killed while patrolling the Maginot Line on 21 June 1940, at Drachenbronn (Bas-Rhin).

Source : MINDEF/SGA/DMPA

(2 January 1897: Cayenne, French Guyana - 7 November 1991: Paris) The grandson of a slave, Gaston Monnerville was born in Cayenne in 1897. A brilliant pupil, in 1912 he won a national scholarship to complete his secondary education at the Pierre de Fermat (Hôtel Bernuy) high school in Toulouse, before enrolling to study the Arts and Law at Toulouse university. In 1921, he became a doctor of law following a viva on a thesis on "Improvement without reason" which was sponsored by the ministry of public education and awarded a prize. That same year he was a successful candidate in the competitive examination for Secretaries to the Judicial Conference, receiving the "Alexandre Fourtanier" Gold medal which is awarded to one of the best secretaries, before leaving Toulouse to register at the Bar in Paris. He was soon to work for the office of the famous lawyer and statesman, César Campinchi, with whom he would be the main partner for eight years.

In 1923, Gaston Monnerville was a successful candidate in the competitive examination for Secretaries to the Conference of Advocates, at the Court of Appeal in Paris. In 1927, he was elected president of the Union of young lawyers, distinguishing himself in several important trials such as the "Galmot" affair in 1931. Fourteen Guyanese, accused after the riot in 1928 resulting from electoral fraud and the suspicious death of MP Jean Galmot, appeared before the court of assizes in Nantes. Along with Fourny, Zevaes, and Henri Torres, Monnerville was responsible for defending them. His pleading had a profound effect on the jury, who voted for their acquittal. This sensational trial signalled his political debut. He stood in Guyana against the outgoing MP, Eugène Lautier, and was elected in the first ballot in 1932 - he was to be re-elected in 1936, having been elected mayor of Cayenne in 1935. Twice under-secretary of State in the Colonies in 1937 and 1938, his experience of international and overseas matters led to his selection as a member of the French delegation to the Pacific Conference, known as the "Conference of the Nine Nations" which was held in Brussels in 1937, at the moment of Japan's attack on China. In 1939, Gaston Monnerville was a member of parliament over forty years of age. According to the Nation's wartime legislation, he was too old to be mobilised. With four of his colleagues, he had a government decree drawn up and signed by Daladier, which allowed an exception and he immediately enlisted in the Marines. He served as an "officer of justice", on the battleship "La Provence", writing of his experiences in the ship's log.
Monnerville was demobilised one week after the vote in Vichy granting full powers to Marshall Pétain on 10 July 1940. On 17 July 1940, he went to Vichy to protest against the Armistice and the status inflicted on overseas citizens by Pétain's government. In the winter of 1940-1941, he campaigned in the "Combat" resistance movement, defending those imprisoned for offences related to their opinions or ethnic backgrounds. Under the pseudonym of "Commandant Saint-Just", he was a member of the maquis (resistance fighters) of the Auvergne (Commander Cheval's group) from October 1942 until October 1944. He was in charge of administration at the Cheylade hospital from June to August 1944 and then recruited by the FFI, taking part in the "Bec d'Allier" operation between 7 and 10 September 1944. The War Cross 1939-1945, the Rosette of the Résistance and the Légion d'Honneur for his military achievements all bear witness to his courage and patriotism. In November 1944, he was appointed by the Resistance of Metropolitan France to sit on the provisional consultative Assembly, where he presided at the "French Overseas Commission" and, representing the nations of the French Union, had the honour of celebrating the Allied victory at the solemn session on 12 May 1945. During this session, he also made a speech in tribute to soldiers from the overseas territories.
In 1945, the temporary Government of the Republic called President Monnerville to lead the commission with the task of drawing up the future political statute for overseas territories. This commission laid down the constitutional framework for the French Union. On 21 October 1945, he was elected for a third time as MP for Guyana at the Constituent Assembly and his mandate was renewed on 2 June the following year at the second National Constituent Assembly. On 15 December 1946, he was appointed vice president of the Guyanese Assembly. In March 1947, he was elected president of the Council of the Republic and re-elected in January 1948. In November 1948 he was elected senator of the Lot, became mayor of Saint-Céré (Lot) from 1964 to 1971 and then president of the permanent Council of the Republic, replaced by the Senate, over which he was to preside for twenty-two years. From March 1974 until March 1983, he sat on the Constitutional Council. Gaston Monnerville was an important overseas statesman: after having been appointed delegate for France in 1937 at the Pacific Conference and then in January 1946 at the United Nations Assembly, he represented France in Latin America in 1957 and in Haiti in 1980, on the bicentenary of its capital, Port-au-Prince. Gaston Monnerville was also a man of letters: in May 1968 he published a work on Georges Clemenceau and then devoted himself to writing his memoirs, Témoignages, De la France équinoxiale au Palais du Luxembourg (Accounts, from equinoctial France to the Palace of Luxembourg) (1975), and Vingt-deux ans de présidence (Twenty-two years of presidency) (1980).

(Jassy, Romania, 14th November 1898 - Auschwitz, 2nd or 3rd October 1944)

Benjamin Wechsler (or Vecsler) chose the name B. Fundoianu to start out as a writer. Writer from an early age, he left a considerable amount of work behind in the Romanian language. Fondane belonged to this line of Romanian writers attracted by the influence of French literature. He arrived in Paris in 1923 under the name of Fundoianu and became Benjamin Fondane. Despite the hopes he placed in it, Fondane never fully supported surrealism. In 1928, he joined the "Discontinuité" group and appreciated René Daumal's "Grand Jeu".

But it was his meeting with Léon Ghestov which was decisive for Fondane, influencing his life and works. From then on, all of his work was written in French. In 1933, his poem Ulysse and his essay Rimbaud le voyou, were published: existential thought, in opposition to the interpretation of Breton and the surrealists. Regarding Faux traité d'esthétique (1938), although it contains a lively critic of surrealism, it presents existential poetry.

Fondane's poetry, as discovered in Ulysse (1933) and Titanic (1938), is bitter and prophetic. All of his poems together under the title Le mal des fantômes form a sort of existential odyssey where the dominant figure is an errant poet who embodies the destiny of man, of the poet, and of the Jew. In 1936 La conscience malheureuse was published, his first philosophical book, containing essays on Ghestov, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, etc. Fondane was passionate about theatre and he wrote several plays: dramatic poems, metaphysical dramas (Le festin de Balthazar, Philoctète), etc. He worked at Cahiers du Sud, where he wrote the "Philosophie vivante" section.

He obtained French nationality in 1938 and was drafted in 1940. He was taken prisoner, but escaped; taken again, he was then freed for health reasons. He spent winter 1942 writing Baudelaire et l'expérience du gouffre. At the same time, he began L'Être et la connaissance, essays on Lévy-Bruhl, Ghestov and Lupasco. His last essay Le lundi existentiel et le dimanche de l'histoire was a philosophical testament. He exposed his philosophy of freedom, of the possible of the dazzling victory over History conceived as a necessity.

He was arrested in March 1944. He was imprisoned in Drancy and deported to Auschwitz, where he was assassinated in a gas chamber on 2nd (or 3rd) October 1944.

A plaque is affixed at 6 rue Rollin in Paris, his home between 15th April 1932 and 7th March 1944.

The name Benjamin Vecsler is written on the Memorial de la Shoah.

Eléments de bibliographie :

Rimbaud le voyou (1933) , Le lundi existentiel, Baudelaire et l'expérience du gouffre, Le Mal des fantômes, Le Voyageur n'a pas fini de voyager, Faux-traité d'esthétique, Essai sur Lupasco.

Guy Môquet was born in Paris on 26 April 1924. Shortly after enrolling in the Lycée Carnot, he developed a passionate interest in politics and decided to follow in the footsteps of his father, the railroad workers' trade union leader and Communist deputy Prosper Môquet. A First World War veteran, Prosper Môquet (1897-1986) joined the French railways, where he became a trade union activist. He joined the French Communist Party in 1926 and was elected a deputy in 1936. Despite the party's dissolution in 1939, he continued following the party line and did not condemn the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact signed on 23 August 1939. He took part in the creation of the French Workers and Farmers Group. He was arrested with 43 other deputies from the group in October 1939, stripped of his office in January 1940 and, like his comrades, sentenced to five years' imprisonment in April. In March 1941 he and other Communist deputies were deported to the Maison-Carrée penal colony in Algeria. Prosper Môquet was released in February 1943 after General de Gaulle's arrival in Algiers, and became a deputy again after the war.

After Prosper was arrested, Guy, his mother Juliette and his little brother Serge took refuge in Bréhal, near the English Channel. He returned to Paris alone and became a fervent activist in the Communist youth movement, which had been clandestinely reorganised. He distributed pamphlets and glued stickers proclaiming the party's policy, including after the Germans' triumphant march into Paris on 14 June 1940 and the proclamation of the French State on 10 July. Meanwhile, Guy kept up a correspondence with his father and tried to obtain his release. In November he wrote Edouard Herriot, president of the National Assembly, a long poem in alexandrine. Here is an excerpt: [align=center]"I am a young Frenchman, and I love my homeland I have a Frenchman's heart, which must take a stand That you return his father, he who remained true To our beautiful France with so much virtue.[/align] On 13 October 1940, French policemen looking for Communist activists arrested 16-year-old Guy Môquet at the Gare de l'Est railway station in Paris. He was interrogated. The police wanted him to give them the names of his father's friends.

The young activist was incarcerated in Fresnes prison and indicted on the same charge as his father: 'infraction of the decree of 26 September 1939 disbanding Communist organisations". On 23 January 1941, he was acquitted by the 15th correctional chamber of Paris and set to be released on probation. But Guy Môquet was not freed. Instead, he was transferred to the Santé prison in Paris on 10 February. The teenager became impatient and wrote to the prosecutor but nothing was done. He was moved to Clairvaux prison, in the Aube, and from there to the Choisel camp in Châteaubriant, in Loire-Inférieure (Loire-Atlantique today), where other Communist activists, most of whom had been arrested between autumn 1939 and 1940, were held.

He arrived on 16 May 1941 and was in barrack 10, the young people's barrack, where he made many friends. On 20 October 1941, three Communist Resistance fighters in Nantes, Marcel Bourdarias, Gilbert Brustlein and Spartaco Guisco, killed Feldkommandant Karl Hotz, commander of the occupation troops in Loire-inférieure. The occupiers decided to shoot 50 hostages in reprisal.

The Vichy government's interior minister, Pierre Pucheu, offered a list, mainly of Communists, including 27 prisoners in the Choisel camp. Among them were Charles Michels, the General Confederation of Labour's (CGT) secretary-general for the hide and leather industries, Jean-Pierre Timbaud, director of metalworking at the CGT and Guy Môquet, son of a Communist deputy. Twenty-one other people were shot in Nantes and Paris at the same time.

Guy Môquet is going to die. A few minutes before being led to the place of execution, gathered with his comrades in barrack 6, he wrote his last letter to his family, the famous letter starting with "I am going to die!" and ending with "I kiss you with all my child's heart". Then he scribbled a last little note to a young Communist, Odette Leclan (today Odette Nilès), an activist in the Union of Young Women of France. He had met her a month earlier just after she had been interned at the Choisel camp and kept in touch with her through a wooden stockade surmounted by a fence that separated the boys' and girls' sections. The young Guy quickly fell in love and, in his last lines, wrote how sorry he was that he would never have the kiss she had promised him.

On 22 October 1941, the 27 hostages were shot in three groups in the sand quarry just outside Châteaubriand. They refused to be blindfolded. With their last breath they cried out "Long live France!" The next day, the Germans scattered the bodies of those whom General de Gaulle called "martyrs" in a radio speech on 25 October in several cemeteries. "By shooting our martyrs," de Gaulle said, "the enemy thought it could frighten France. But France will show that she is fearless."

Guy Môquet's body was later transported to Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris (square 97) and buried alongside his brother and mother. Guy Môquet was posthumously made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour and given the Croix de Guerre and Medal of the Resistance.

Links to other sites Site: www.education.gouv.fr Site: www.crdp-reims.fr Site: www.cidem.org Site: www.chateaubriant.org Site sur Victor Renelle

Emile Henry Muselier was born in Marseille on the 17th April 1882 and died in Toulon on the 2nd September 1965. He was a student at the Naval College from 1899 to 1901. From then until 1939 he had a brilliant career, during which he alternated between positions on active duty (in the Far East from 1902 until 1905, Yser in 1915 etc.) and in high public office (a member of the cabinets of Painlevé, Jeanneney and Clemenceau). He was ranked Ship of the Line Ensign first class in 1902 and promoted to Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant in 1912, Ship-of-the-Line Captain in 1926, Rear Admiral in 1933 and Vice Admiral in 1939. Just after his last promotion he retired, but joined General de Gaulle in London on the 30th June 1940. The latter gave him the task of creating the Free French Naval Forces (les Forces navales françaises libres, or FNFL) and the Free French Air Forces (les Forces aériennes françaises libres or FAFL). He carried out the role of Chief of the FNFL until the 30th April 1942. Appointed Commissioner to the Navy on the National Committee, in December 1941 he directed the expedition that resulted in the liberation of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. He resigned from the National Committee on the 3rd March 1942. He teamed up with General Giraud in Algiers in May 1943 and in June he was appointed Deputy Commander in Chief of the North African Maritime Forces. In August 1943, following the merging of the FNFL with the North African Maritime Forces, he was relieved of his duties.

In September 1944 he was appointed Head of the Naval Delegation to the Military Mission for National Defence, in charge of German Affairs. He retired from active service in June 1946. Up until 1960, he worked as an engineering advisor for the company Laignel. He was also involved with organisations for ex-servicemen and First World War ex-marine fusiliers and was appointed Honorary president of the Franco-Belgian Union of Servicemen of the Yser and Flanders and President of the National Help the Aged Association. Vice Admiral Muselier was a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, a Friend of the Liberation and a Friend of the Order of the Bath. He was also a holder of the War Cross for the 1914-1918 war and the War Cross for overseas operations. Amongst his published works, Marine et Résistance(The Navy and Resistance) (1945) and De Gaulle contre de Gaulle (De Gaulle against Gaullism) (1946) are of note.

Robert Desnos was born in Paris on 4 July 1900 and spent his childhood in the Les Halles district. Showing little interest in school, he preferred the world of comics and adventure novels. At the age of 16, he became a sales assistant in a hardware store. In 1918, his first writings appeared in La Tribune des jeunes (The young people's Tribune), and an anthology of his poems Le Fard des argonautes (The colour of the Argonauts) was published in an avant-garde review, Le Trait d'union (The Hyphen) in 1919. The following year, he discovered the Dada movement with Benjamin Perret and André Breton, a group that he joined after his military service in Morocco. When surrealism, which had a great influence on the literature between the wars, replaced Dadaism, Desnos became a fundamental key player: automatic writing and dreaming under hypnosis gave birth to strange poetry and aphorisms: Prose Sélavy, L'Aumonyme, L'asile ami... (Sélavy Prose, The Aumonyme, The refuge friend) "The blade that slices the affliction of the soul, does it unveil to friends the fiction of the affection?"(Prose Sélavy) Between 1924 and 1929, he was editor at La Révolution surréaliste (The Surrealist Revolution), as well as accountant, cashier and journalist at Paris-Soir (Paris Evening paper) and then at Soir (Evening), gradually dividing his love life between the singer Yvonne George - who died in 1930 - and Youki Foujita. La liberté ou l'amour, La mystérieuse and Siramour (Liberty or Love, The mysterious woman and Siramour) date from this period. In 1926, he moved to the Montparnasse district, rubbing shoulders with the Prévert brothers, Raymond Queneau and Joan Miro.

Discovering whether or not the surrealist spirit was compatible with political commitment - communism - caused the breakup of the group, leading to the trading of insults between Desnos, Prévert, Soupault and a few others with Breton, Aragon and Eluard... In the 1930s, Desnos' work developed: he wrote less, launching himself into radio - as a programme producer and advertising copywriter - and into song-writing and cinema. Coming from a modest background, he wanted culture to permeate into everyone's lives. "The moon, nest of glow worms, Makes its way across the sky. She sows on the children, On all the beautiful sleeping children, Dream upon dream, drop by drop."(Chantefables et Chantefleurs)
But the artist within him saw the international tensions as a threat to freedom: he joined the Watchfulness Committee of Antifascist Intellectuals, campaigned for the Spanish republicans and unashamedly put on a uniform in 1939. Demobilised after the defeat of June 1940, he joined the Aujourd'hui (Today) newspaper. In 1942, he joined the "Agir" (Act) Résistance network, taking part in clandestine press operations and rediscovered literature in the form of pamphlets and novels (Maréchal Duconno and Etat de veille (Marshall Duconno and Sate of Sleeplessness) etc."I am the vigil at the Golden Door Around the dungeon the Bois de Vincennes deepened their darkness I heard cries coming from the direction of Créteil And trains roll towards the east leaving a vapour trail of rebellion songs."(Destinée arbitraire)(Random Destination) On 22 February 1944, Desnos was arrested and taken to Fresnes prison. The Compiègne-Royallieu camp, to which he was transferred on 20 March, was the first stage of his deportation. On 12 May, he left for Buchenwald. On 25 May, he reached the camp at Flossenburg and then on 2 June, the sub-camp at Flohä. When the Allies broke through into Germany, the Nazis evacuated the camps, executing the deportees or sending them on one of the many dreadful staggered journeys to their deaths. Having left on 14 April 1945, Desnos thus arrived in Theresienstadt (Terezin) in Czechoslovakia, a town liberated by the Russians on 8 May. Suffering from typhus, he died on the 8th June 1945. His remains are laid to rest in the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.