About
Missak Manouchian, born in 1906 in Adıyaman in the Ottoman Empire, survived the Armenian genocide and arrived in France in 1924 as a stateless refugee. A worker and poet, he co-founded the review Tchank in 1930. A member of the French Communist Party from 1934, he joined the FTP-MOI in 1943 and became military chief for the Paris region. His group carried out nearly a hundred actions against the Nazi occupier. Arrested in November 1943, he was executed at Mont-Valérien on February 21, 1944. His farewell letter to his wife Mélinée remains famous. He entered the Panthéon in 2024.
* 1909-09-01 — † 1944-02-21
Major works
- Ivre d'un grand rêve de liberté (2024)poetry collection
Key milestones
- 1943Becomes military chief of the FTP-MOI for the Paris region.
- 1944Executed by the Nazis at Mont-Valérien with 22 comrades.
- 2024Enters the Panthéon with his wife Mélinée.
Themes
ResistanceExilePoetryFreedomMemory
Sources: monuments-nationaux.fr · memorialdelashoah.org