Jacques Grippa (March 30, 1913– August 30, 1990) was a Belgian politician, member of the resistance during World War II and communist.

Biography

Grippa was the son of the Italian immigrant Jean Grippa (1886–1945) and the Belgian woman Stéphanie Becco (1888–1935). In 1930, he studied engineering at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French (language), French. History The university was foun ...

and became a member of the Belgian Communist Party. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Grippa was a member of the resistance. In 1943, he was imprisoned as a

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

at Fort Breendonk. He was tortured, but refused to betray anybody and was therefore sent to

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

. After the war, he became head of cabinet at the ministry of War Victims, where he oversaw the treatment of political prisoners. He was als chief of cabinet for Jean Borremans, who worked for the Communist Minister of Civil Works. In 1962, he was removed from the Belgian Communist Party because he was more endeared to

Maoism Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...

. Together with fellow former members, he founded a new Marxist–Leninist party, but which quickly faded out after only a few years. In 1964, as Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belgium, he visited

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, delivering a speech at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party.

Publications

* 1967 Structural Reforms: A Neo-Reformist Mystification

References

1913 births 1990 deaths Belgian people of Italian descent Belgian communists 20th-century Belgian politicians Walloon movement activists Walloon politicians Belgian resistance members Breendonk prison camp survivors Buchenwald concentration camp survivors {{Wallonia-politician-stub