History
The FTP-MOI groups were organized in the Paris region in 1941, at the same time as the Francs-tireurs et partisans. Their ranks were filled with foreign communists living in France who were not part of the French Communist Party. Although integrated with the FTP, these groups depended directly on Jacques Duclos, who passed on orders from the Communist International (Comintern). Members also included other immigrants, especially many young Hungarian writers, artists and intellectuals. Among them were the painter Sándor Józsa; sculptor István Hajdú (Etienne Hajdu); journalists László Kőrösi and Imre Gyomra; photographers Andras (André) Steiner, Lucien Hervé, and Ervin Marton; and printer Ladislas Mandel.
The FTP-MOI were among the most active and determined of the resistance groups; particularly because they were foreigners and mostly Jews, they were under the direct watch of the Vichy regime and the Germans. Without maintaining strict secrecy, they risked internment, deportation and death. Because they depended directly on the Comintern, with Duclos as their intermediary, they were often on the front line when the order to fight came from Moscow. The various French groups were more attentive to the French national political climate.
The Parisian groups were initially led by Boris Holban, then the poet turned activist Missak Manouchian. After Manouchian was arrested in 1943 and executed in February 1944, Holban took over again.
The FTP-MOI are particularly well known because of the highly publicized trial of numerous members of the Manouchian Group. Tracked, arrested and interrogated by the French police, the show trial of the 23 members was held in front of a German military tribunal at the hôtel Continental. It began on 17 February 1944, lasted between two and four days, and after a 30-minute deliberation, the court reached the following verdict: All of the accused were condemned to death, with no possibility of appeal.
All but two were shot immediately on 21 February at Mont-Valérien. The execution of Olga Bancic was suspended for further enquiry and because French law prohibited executing women by firing squad. In a new sentence passed on her birthday of 10 May 1944 at Stuttgart, she was condemned to death. She was beheaded shortly after the sentencing. One accused, Migratulski, was transferred to French jurisdiction.
Following the trial and executions, the Germans created a poster with a red background, featuring ten men of the Manouchian group with their names, photos and alleged crimes; it became known as l'Affiche Rouge. The Germans distributed thousands of copies of the poster around the city to encourage Parisians to think of the partisans as criminal foreigners and "not French", and discourage resistance; instead, the Affiches Rouges inspired citizens to more actions. Some marked the posters with phrases such as Morts pour la France! (They died for France.)
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