Wolf Wajsbrot

Who was Wolf Wajsbrot?

Wolf Wajsbrot was a member of the French Resistance under the Nazi occupation. Born in the Polish town of Kraśnik, his parents moved to France, eventually settling in Paris, shortly after his birth due to increasing anti-semitism and a worsening economic climate.

In 1939, the year Germany 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 on 16 July 1942 and deported. Wajsbrot joined the Communist resistance group Francs-tireurs et partisans - Main-d'œuvre immigrée shortly afterwards and proved to be a key member in the violent actions they brought against the occupiers. 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.

Wajsbrot's photograph was one of ten featuring on the Affiche Rouge, the iconic Nazi propaganda poster describing the FTP as an "army of crime".

By mid-1943, however, the Germans had begun to close in on the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans. Following the capture of one of the group's leaders and the subsequent information gained from his torture, the remaining of the members of his cell were captured in November 1943. Between his capture and subsequent trial in February of the following year, Wajsbrot was interrogated and tortured. After a one-day trial, he was condemned to death. On the afternoon of 21 February 1944, at the age of eighteen, Wajsbrot was executed at Mont Valérien, in a suburb of Paris.