Wolf Wajsbrot (3 March 1925 – 21 February 1944) was a member of the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

under the Nazi occupation. He was born in the Polish town of

Kraśnik Kraśnik is a town in southeastern Poland with 35,602 inhabitants (2012), situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, historic Lesser Poland. It is the seat of Kraśnik County. The town of Kraśnik as it is known today was created in 1975, after the mer ...

. His parents moved to France shortly after his birth due to increasing

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

and a worsening economic climate, eventually settling in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. In 1939, the year

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

invaded Poland and war was declared, Wajsbrot gained his school leaving certificate and began training to be a mechanic. Following the Nazi occupation of Paris, Wajsbrot's parents were arrested in the

Vel' d'Hiv Roundup The Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup ( ; from , an abbreviation of ) was a mass arrest of Jews in Paris on 16–17 July 1942 by Vichy French police at the behest of the German occupational authorities. Occurring during World War II, Jews arrested during ...

(''Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv'') on 16 July 1942 and deported. Wajsbrot joined the Communist resistance group ''

Francs-tireurs et partisans - Main-d'œuvre immigrée 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 ar ...

'' (FTP-MOI) shortly afterwards and proved to be a key participant in the violent actions they brought against the occupiers.Jewish Currents, Vol. 56, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 2002) Six days after his eighteenth birthday, Wajsbrot threw a grenade into a train carriage reserved for German soldiers, causing "undescribable damage" according to an eye-witness. By mid-1943, the Germans had begun to close in on the FTP-MOI. Following the capture of one of the group's leaders and the subsequent information gained from his torture, the remaining the members of his cell (Wajsbrot among them) were captured in November 1943. Between his capture and subsequent trial in February of the following year, Wajsbrot was

interrogated Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful inf ...

and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

d. After a one-day trial, he was condemned to death. On the afternoon of 21 February 1944, still just eighteen years old, Wajsbrot was

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

Mont Valérien Mont may refer to: Places * Mont., an abbreviation for Montana, a U.S. state * Mont, Belgium (disambiguation), several places in Belgium * Mont, Hautes-Pyrénées, a commune in France * Mont, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a commune in France * Mont, Sa� ...

, in a suburb of Paris. Wajsbrot's photograph was one of ten featuring on the Affiche Rouge, the iconic Nazi

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

poster describing the FTP as an "army of crime". He is buried in the Parisian cemetery of Ivry under the words ''

Mort pour la France (, ) is a legal expression in France and an honour awarded to people who died during a conflict, usually in service of the country. Definition The term is defined in L.488 to L.492 (bis) of the ''Code of Military Disability Pensions and War ...

''.

References

Bibliography

* ''Les Jeunes et la Résistance'', dir. Laurence Thibault, AERI/La Documentation Française, 2007 * ''L'Affiche rouge'',

Adam Rayski Adam Rayski (14 August 1913 – 11 March 2008) was a Franco-Polish intellectual best remembered for his involvement with the French resistance. Communist activist Rayski was born as Abraham Rajgrodski to a family of ''Ashkenazim'' (Yiddish-speak ...

''Mairie de Paris'', 2003 * ''La Résistance en Ile-de-France'', DVD-Rom, AERI, 2004 * ''Le Sang de l'étranger - Les immigrés de la M.O.I. dans la Résistance'', S. Courtois, D. Peschanski, A. Rayski, Fayard, 1989

External links

"Wolf Wajsbrot" United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, May 20, 2008
*
''La journée d'un "Terroriste"'' (Daily life of a "terrorist")
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wajsbrot, Wolf 1925 births 1944 deaths People from Kraśnik Jews in the French resistance Members of the Francs-tireurs et partisans Affiche Rouge Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany French people executed by Nazi Germany Polish people executed by Nazi Germany Deaths by firearm in France Executed people from Lublin Voivodeship Polish emigrants to France Jews executed by Nazi Germany People executed by Nazi courts People executed by Nazi Germany by firing squad