Missak Manouchian

Missak Manouchian (Armenian: ՄիսաքՄանուշյան), or Michel Manouchian , is a Communist militant of the ME and police chief military of ftp me of the Paris region, born on September 1st 1906 in Adyaman in Turkey and dead the February 21st 1944, shot at the height Mont Valérien.

Childhood, youth

Missak Manouchian was born in a family from peasants Arménie NS from the village from Adyaman in Turkey. Child, it loses his father, probably killed by soldiers Turkish at the time of the Armenian genocide. His/her mother dies some time afterwards, victim of the famine which followed. He is then collected, with his Karabet brother, in an orphanage of the French protectorate of Syria. In 1925, they unload with Marseilles where Missak exerts the trade of Menuisier which he learned with the orphanage. Then the two brothers go up on Paris where Karabet falls ill. Missak is then made engage with the factories Citroen as turner, in order to provide for their needs. Karabet dies in 1927 and Missak will be laid off at the time of the great economic crisis of the beginning of the the Thirties. It then earns its living while posing for sculptors. Written Missak of the poems and, with his/her Armenian friend Sowed, it founds two literary reviews, Tchank (Effort) and Machagouyt (Culture), where they publish articles concerning the French Littérature and Armenian and translate Baudelaire, Verlaine and Armenian Rimbaud in . At the same time, Missak and Semma are registered with the Sorbonne like non-registered students and follow there courses of Littérature, of Philosophie, political economy and Histoire.

In 1934, Missak adheres to the Communist party. In 1935, it is elected secretary of the Comité of Help for Arménie (HOC) which raises in fact of the ME. It becomes militant a " then; permanent". It is there that it meets in 1935 Mélinée Manouchian which will become his/her partner. At the same time, it is also responsible for the newspaper Zangou (name of a Armenian river).

The Second world war

At the time of the war of 1939-1940, it seems that as a foreigner, he was affected in a factory of the area of Rouen. But returned in Paris, after the defeat of June 1940, it takes again its militant activities, become illegal since the Communist party is interdict since September 1939. It is stopped during a raid anticommunist before the June 22nd 1941, date of the invasion of the USSR by the Germans. Interned with the camp of Compiegne, it is released at the end of a few weeks: no load being retained against him. He then becomes political official of the clandestine Armenian section of EGO whose one hardly knows the activity until 1943. In February 1943, Manouchian is versed in ftp ME, group of the Francs-tireurs and partisans - immigrant Labor of Paris, groups armed made up in April 1942 under the direction of the Jew Bessarabia N Boris Holban. The first detachment where it is affected comprises primarily Rumanian and Hungarian Jews and some Armenians. March 17th, it takes part in its first armed action, Levallois-Perret, but its indiscipline is worth a blame and a setting with the variation to him.

In July 1943, he becomes technical police chief of the ftp me Parisian. In August, it is named military police chief of the ftp me Parisian, in the place of Boris Holban who had been dislocated of his functions for disciplinary reasons. Joseph Epstein, person in charge of another group of ftp me, had become the person in charge of the whole of FTPF of the Paris region. He is thus the hierarchically superior of Manouchian which has under its orders three detachments is on the whole about fifty militants. One must put at his credit the execution, the September 28th 1943, of the general Julius Ritter, assistant for France of Fritz Sauckel, person in charge of the mobilization of labor in Europe occupied by the Nazis. The groups of Manouchian achieve nearly thirty operations in full Paris of August to the mid- November 1943.

The special Brigade n° 2 of the General informations had made a success of two hauls in March and July 1943. From there, it could conclude a vast spinning mill which ends in the complete dismantling of the ftp me Parisian mid-November with 68 arrests of which Manouchian and Joseph Epstein. Manouchian is stopped with Évry Petit-Bourg. His/her Mélinée partner manages to escape the police force. Missak Manouchian, tortured, and twenty two of his/her comrades are delivered to the Germans who exploit the business at ends of propaganda. Famous the red Poster, placarded with 15.000 specimens, presents it in these terms: " Manouchian, Armenian, gang leader, 56 attacks, 150 died, 600 wounded ".

The twenty-two men were shot with the Mount-Valérien the February 21st 1944. Olga Bancic was decapitated with the prison of Stuttgart the May 10th 1944.

Posthumous

In 1955, at the time of the inauguration of the " street of the Manouchian" Group; , located in the 20th district of Paris, Aragon wrote a poem Strophes to remember , freely inspired of the last letter that Missak Manouchian addressed to his Mélinée wife and who will be put in music by Léo Ferré under the title the red Poster , in 1959.

Random links: