Missak Manouchian
Encyclopedia
Missak Manouchian (Armenian: Միսաք Մանուշյան) (1 September 1906 - 21 February 1944) was a French poet of Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n birth, a militant communist in the MOI (Main-d'œuvre immigrée
Main-d'œuvre immigrée
The Main-d'œuvre immigrée was a French trade unionist organisation, composed of immigrant workers of the Confédération générale du travail unitaire in the 1920s. The MOI was affiliated to the Profintern...
or Immigrant Workforce Movement), and military commissioner of the FTP-MOI (Partisan
Partisan (military)
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
irregulars of the MOI) in the Paris region. He was 37 years old when executed by the Germans for his Résistance work.
Although Manouchian became well known for his leadership in the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
, he was, above all, an intellectual and a talented poet.
Early life
Missak Manouchian was born on 1 September 1906 at AdıyamanAdiyaman
Adıyaman is city in southeastern Turkey, capital of the Adıyaman Province. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in Turkey...
in the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
into a peasant family of Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
ethnicity. The town was near the Syrian border. Manouchian's father died during the Armenian genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
of 1915, and his mother died soon afterward.
Missak and his brother, Karabet, now orphaned, joined the stream of Armenian refugees' heading south into the French protectorate
Protectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
. The brothers were accepted at an orphanage, where they learned the French language, and acquired carpentry and other manual skills. They remained until they were able to secure passage to Marseilles, where they landed in 1925, when Manouchian was 19. Eventually, they moved to Paris, where Missak took a job as a lathe operator at a Citroën
Citroën
Citroën is a major French automobile manufacturer, part of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group.Founded in 1919 by French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën , Citroën was the first mass-production car company outside the USA and pioneered the modern concept of creating a sales and services network that...
plant and joined the General Confederation of Labour
General Confederation of Labour
General Confederation of Labour can mean one of the following labor unions:* Italian General Confederation of Labour * Central General de Trabajadores , a trade union in the Dominican Republic...
(in French: Confédération Générale du Travail or CGT). This national association of trade unions was the first of the five major French confederations.
His brother Karabet died in 1927 of unknown causes. In the early 1930s when the world-wide economic crisis of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
set in, Missak Manouchian lost his job. Disaffected with capitalism, he began earning a meager living by posing as a model for sculptors. Manouchian also wrote poetry and, with his Armenian friend by the surname of Semmes
Semmes
Semmes may refer to:*Semmes, Alabama, a community in southwest AlabamaIn military history:*Alexander Alderman Semmes , American Civil War Union Navy commodore....
, he founded two literary magazines, Tchank (Effort) and Machagouyt (Culture). They published articles on French literature and Armenian culture. The two young men translated the poetry of Baudelaire, Verlaine
Verlaine
Verlaine is a municipality of Belgium. It lies in the country's Walloon Region and Province of Liege. On January 1, 2006 Verlaine had a total population of 3,507. The total area is 24.21 km² which gives a population density of 145 inhabitants per km². The municipality contains the villages...
, and Rimbaud into Armenian, making many of these works available in Armenian for the first time. Both Manouchian and Semmes enrolled at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
to audit courses in literature, philosophy, economics, and history.
In 1934, Manouchian joined the Communist Party. The following year, he was elected secretary of the Relief Committee for Armenia (HOC), an organization associated with the MOI (Immigrant Workforce Movement). He became a full-time militant. At a meeting of the MOI in 1935, he met a woman named Mélinée Assadourian, who became his companion (and, later, his wife). Also in 1935, Manouchian assumed responsibility for the Armenian-language weekly newspaper, Zangou, named for an Armenian river.
The Resistance
When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, Manouchian as a foreigner was evacuated from Paris. He found work in the RouenRouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
area, again as a lathe-operator. After the defeat of June 1940, he returned to Paris to find that his militant activities had become illegal. (French authorities had banned 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
Compiègne
Compiègne is a city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.The city is located along the Oise River...
, he was released after a few weeks without being charged.
Manouchian became 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; the FTP was an armed faction of the MOI that had been formed in April 1942 under the leadership of the Jewish Bessarabian, Boris Holban. The first detachment to which he was assigned included mostly Jewish Romanians and Hungarians, and only a few Armenians.
On 17 March 1943, Manouchian at age 36 participated in his first armed action, in Levallois-Perret
Levallois-Perret
Levallois-Perret is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.-Name:The name Levallois-Perret comes from two housing developments, Champerret and Village Levallois , and which resulted in the incorporation of the...
. His lack of discipline earned him a reprimand, and he was suspended from further operations. In July 1943, he became technical commissioner of the FTP-MOI in Paris; in August, he became the military commissioner, replacing Boris Holban, who had been dismissed for insubordination. Joseph Epstein, head of another group of FTP-MOI, became the head of all of the partisan guerrilla fighters in the Paris region. Manouchian assumed command of three detachments, totaling about 50 fighters. The Manouchian group is credited with the assassination (by the partisans, Marcel Rayman
Marcel Rayman
Marcel Rayman, alias Simon Maujean, Faculté, Michel, and Michel Mieczlav 1 May 1923, Warsaw, Poland − 21 February 1944, fort du Mont-Valérien) was a Polish Jew and volunteer fighter in the FTP-MOI group of French resistance fighters during World War II, and the head of "Stalingrad", a highly active...
, Léo Kneller, and Celestino Alfonso
Celestino Alfonso
Célestino Alfonso was a Spanish republican, a volunteer in the French liberation army FTP-MOI, and a part of the resistance operation led by Missak Manouchian. He was, by profession, a carpenter.-Youth:Alfonso arrived in France at the beginning of the 1930s...
) on 28 September 1943, of General Julius Ritter, the assistant in France to Fritz Sauckel
Fritz Sauckel
Ernst Friedrich Christoph "Fritz" Sauckel was a Nazi war criminal, who organized the systematic enslavement of millions from lands occupied by Nazi Germany...
, responsible for the mobilization and deportation of labor under the German STO (the Obligatory Work Service) in Nazi-occupied Europe. The groups under Manouchian carried out almost thirty successful attacks on German interests from August to November 1943.
In March and July 1943, the Special Brigade No. 2 of General Intelligence made two sweeps, looking for troublemakers. (The Special Brigades were a collaborationist French police force specializing in tracking down "internal enemies": members of the French Resistance, dissidents, escaped prisoners, Jews, and those evading the STO.) The Special Brigades undertook a large operation based on tailing suspected activists, an effort which eventually led to the complete dismantling of the FTP-MOI of Paris in mid-November. They arrested a total of 68 persons, including Manouchian and Epstein. On the morning of 16 November 1943, Manouchian was arrested in his headquarters at Evry-Petit Bourg. His companion, Mélinée, managed to escape the police.
Missak Manouchian, tortured, and 22 of his comrades were handed over to the Germans' Geheime Feldpolizei
Geheime Feldpolizei
The ' or GFP, was the secret military police of the German Wehrmacht until the end of Second World War. These units were used to carry out plain-clothed security work in the field such as counter-espionage, counter sabotage, detection of treasonable activities, counter-propaganda and to provide...
(GFP) and all 23 were exploited in a show trial for propaganda purposes before execution. Manouchian and 21 of his comrades were shot at Fort Mont-Valérien
Fort Mont-Valérien
Fort Mont-Valérien is a fortress in Suresnes a western Paris suburb, built in 1841 as part of the city's ring of modern fortifications...
, near Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, on 21 February 1944. Only Olga Bancic
Olga Bancic
Olga Bancic , also known under her French nom de guerre Pierrette , was a Jewish Romanian communist, known for her role in the French Resistance during World War II. A member of the FTP-MOI and the Manouchian Group, she was captured by Nazi German forces in late 1943...
, the twenty-third member of Manouhian's inner circle, was executed elsewhere; she was beheaded in the prison at Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
on 10 May 1944.
The members of the group were:
- Celestino AlfonsoCelestino AlfonsoCélestino Alfonso was a Spanish republican, a volunteer in the French liberation army FTP-MOI, and a part of the resistance operation led by Missak Manouchian. He was, by profession, a carpenter.-Youth:Alfonso arrived in France at the beginning of the 1930s...
— Spaniard - Olga BancicOlga BancicOlga Bancic , also known under her French nom de guerre Pierrette , was a Jewish Romanian communist, known for her role in the French Resistance during World War II. A member of the FTP-MOI and the Manouchian Group, she was captured by Nazi German forces in late 1943...
— Romanian - József BoczovJoseph BoczovJoseph Boczov or József Boczor, aka Ferenc Wolff , was a chemical engineer, Hungarian Jew, and volunteer fighter for the French liberation army FTP-MOI. In 1942 Boczov founded and led the 4th detachment, called the dérailleurs, as they specialized in derailing trains...
— Jewish Hungarian - Georges Cloarec — French
- Rino Della Negra— Italian
- Támas ElekThomas ElekThomas Elek, also known as Támas Elek and KERPAL was one of the members of the French resistance executed at the fort of Mont Valérien as a member of the Manouchian Group, a volunteer of the French liberation army FTP-MOI...
— Jewish Hungarian - Maurice FingercwajgMaurice FingercwajgMaurice Fingercwajg also Mojsze, Fingercweig , was one of the resistance fighters shot at the Fort Mont Valérien, a volunteer soldier in the French liberation army FTP-MOI and a member of the group of Missak Manouchian.- Biography :Fingercwajg was born on 25 December 1923 in Warsaw, Poland...
— Polish - Spartaco FontanoSpartaco FontanoSpartaco Fontano , was one of the members of the French resistance shot at Mont Valérien as a member of the Manouchian group. He was an Italian volunteer soldier in the French liberation army FTP-MOI...
— Italian - Imre Békés Glasz — Jewish Hungarian
- Jonas Geduldig — Polish
- Léon GoldbergLéon GoldbergLéon Goldberg, called "Julien" was a Polish Jew and volunteer fighter in the French Liberation army FTP-MOI in the Manouchian Group.- Youth :...
— Polish - Szlama GrzywaczSzlama GrzywaczSzlama Grzywacz was one of the members of the French resistance executed at the fort of Mont Valérien as a member of the Manouchian group, a volunteer of the French liberation army FTP-MOI. His name is one of the ten which featured on the Affiche Rouge displayed by the Germans during the trial of...
— Polish - Stanislas Kubacki — Polish
- Arpen Lavitian — Armenian
- Cesare Luccarini — Italian
- Missak Manouchian — Armenian
- Marcel RaymanMarcel RaymanMarcel Rayman, alias Simon Maujean, Faculté, Michel, and Michel Mieczlav 1 May 1923, Warsaw, Poland − 21 February 1944, fort du Mont-Valérien) was a Polish Jew and volunteer fighter in the FTP-MOI group of French resistance fighters during World War II, and the head of "Stalingrad", a highly active...
— Polish - Roger Rouxel — French
- Antonio Salvadori — Italian
- Willy Szapiro — Polish
- Amadeo Usseglio— Italian
- Wolf WajsbrotWolf WajsbrotWolf Wajsbrot 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 in Paris, shortly after his birth due to increasing anti-semitism and a worsening economic climate.In 1939, the year Germany invaded...
— Polish - Robert WitchitzRobert WitchitzRobert Witchitz was a volunteer soldier in the French liberation force FTP-MOI in the group of Missak Manouchian.- Youth :...
— French
The last letter
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- My dear Melinée, my beloved little orphan,
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- In a few hours I will no longer be of this world. We are going to be executed today at 3:00. This is happening to me like an accident in my life; I don’t believe it, but I nevertheless know that I will never see you again.
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- What can I write you? Everything inside me is confused, yet clear at the same time.
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- I joined the Army of Liberation as a volunteer, and I die within inches of victory and the final goal. I wish for happiness for all those who will survive and taste the sweetness of the freedom and peace of tomorrow. I'm sure that the French people, and all those who fight for freedom, will know how to honor our memory with dignity. At the moment of death, I proclaim that I have no hatred for the German people, or for anyone at all; everyone will receive what he is due, as punishment and as reward. The German people, and all other people, will live in peace and brotherhood after the war, which will not last much longer. Happiness for all ... I have one profound regret, and that’s of not having made you happy; I would so much have liked to have a child with you, as you always wished. So I'd absolutely like you to marry after the war, and, for my happiness, to have a child and, to fulfill my last wish, marry someone who will make you happy. All my goods and all my affairs, I leave them to you and to my nephews. After the war you can request your right to a war pension as my wife, for I die as a regular soldier in the French army of liberation.
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- With the help of friends who'd like to honor me, you should publish my poems and writings that are worth being read. If possible, you should take my memory to my parents in Armenia. I will soon die with 23 of my comrades, with the courage and the serenity of a man with a peaceful conscience; for, personally, I've done no one ill, and if I have, it was without hatred. Today is sunny. It’s in looking at the sun and the beauties of nature that I loved so much that I will say farewell to life and to all of you, my beloved wife, and my beloved friends. I forgive all those who did me evil, or who wanted to do so, with the exception of he who betrayed us to redeem his skin, and those who sold us out. I ardently kiss you, as well as your sister and all those who know me, near and far; I hold you all against my heart. Farewell. Your friend, your comrade, your husband,
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- Manouchian Michel
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- P.S. I have 15,000 francs in the valise on the rue de Plaisance. If you can get it, pay off all my debts and give the rest to Armenia. MM
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The original document "the last letter by Manouchian" is currently stored in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
The red poster
In the wake of the executions, the Germans printed 15,000 propaganda posters, the famous red postersAffiche Rouge
The Affiche Rouge is a famous propaganda poster, distributed by Vichy French and German authorities in the spring of 1944 in occupied Paris, to discredit 23 French Resistance fighters, members of the Manouchian Group...
, that bore photos of ten of the dead, each in its own black medallion. In the center of the poster, Manouchian appeared, with this inscription: "Armenian gang leader, 56 bombings, 150 dead, 600 wounded." The objective of the poster was to convince ordinary French citizens that the members of MOI (and the Resistance in general) were nothing but murderous foreigners and a danger to law-abiding, cooperative, citizens. But, the red posters, pasted on the walls all over Paris, became emblems of martyrdom by freedom fighters, and popular support for the Resistance grew.
Legacy
- In 1955, on the occasion of the dedication of a street in the 20th arrondissement of Paris named for the Mamouchian group, Louis AragonLouis AragonLouis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...
wrote a poem, "Strophes pour se souvenir", loosely inspired by the last letter that Missak Manouchian wrote to his wife Mélinée. In 1959 Léo FerréLéo FerréLéo Ferré was a Franco-Monegasque poet, composer, singer and musician.Born in Monaco, Ferré mixed love and melancholy with moral anarchy, lyricism with slang, rhyming verse with prose monologues...
set the poem to music and recorded it under the title "L'Affiche rouge". The last stanza of Aragon's poem is:
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- They were twenty-three when the rifles blossomed
- Twenty-three who gave their hearts before their time
- Twenty-three foreigners but still our brothers
- Twenty-three who loved life to death
- Twenty-three who cried out “France!” as they fell.
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- The mayor of EvryÉvry-Administration:Évry is the préfecture of the Essonne département. It is also the official seat of the arrondissement of Évry, although in reality the sous-préfecture buildings and administration are located in the neighboring commune of Corbeil-Essonnes.Évry is the capital of two cantons:*...
named a park along the Seine a few hundred yards from Evry station for Missak Manouchian. He established a memorial at the place of his arrest.
- A commemorative plaque was installed on 21 February 2009 by the mayor of the city of Paris at 11 rue de Plaisance, in the 14th arrondissement in the presence of a number of former Resistance fighters. The old hotel at this address was the last home shared by Mélinée (born Assadourian) and Missak Manouchian.
- In 1985, Mélinée Manouchian, who had managed to elude Nazi capture during the war, launched a public debate by stating that comrades of the victims had done nothing to prevent their capture and execution.
- In the 1980s and 1990s, there has been controversy generated by documentaries arguing for revision to wartime accounts.
Photographs taken secretly by a German officer were made public by Serge Klarsfeld in December 2009.
See also
- French Communist PartyFrench Communist PartyThe French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
- French ResistanceFrench ResistanceThe French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
- Affiche RougeAffiche RougeThe Affiche Rouge is a famous propaganda poster, distributed by Vichy French and German authorities in the spring of 1944 in occupied Paris, to discredit 23 French Resistance fighters, members of the Manouchian Group...
(Red Poster) - The Army of CrimeThe Army of CrimeThe Army of Crime is a 2009 French drama-war film directed by Robert Guédiguian and based on a story by Serge Le Péron, one of three credited for the screenplay. It received a wide release in France on September 16, 2009 and opened in the United States in 2010.The film deals with the events of the...
, a film by Robert Guédiguian (2009)
Further reading
- Stéphane Courtois, "Missak Manouchian", in Biographical Dictionary of the French labor movement, Workers Publishing.
- Stéphane Courtois, Denis Peschanski, Adam Rayski, Blood from abroad - Immigrants of the MOI in the Resistance, Paris: Fayard, 1989.
- Didier Daeninckx, Missak, Perrin, 2009.
- Philippe Ganier-Raymond, The Red Poster, Fayard, 1975
- Gaston Laroche, They were called foreigners, the French gathered Publishers, 1965.
- Mélinée Manouchian, Manouchian, The French Publishers meeting, Paris, 1954; reprint 1974.
- Benoit Rayski, The Red Poster, Denoel Publishing, Paris 2009.
- A. Tchakarian, Les Francs-shooters of the Red Poster, Paris, 1986.
- Serge Venturini , "Missak Manouchian", in Shards: of a poetics of becoming transhuman, 2003-2008 (Book III), collection Poets of the five continents, Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 2009, (book dedicated to Missak Manouchian) (ISBN 978-2-296-09603-5), pp. 104–116.
External links
- "Unveiling of the plaque in memory of Manouchian on the rue Plaisance", [archive], mairie du 14e arrondissement de Paris, October 22, 2008.
- Bastien Hugues, "Les derniers instants du groupe Manouchian" (The last moments of the group Manouchian), Le Figaro, [archive], 11 Dec 2009 - three recently released photos of the execution, taken by a Wehrmacht officer.