|
|
|
|
|
Joseph EpsteinJoseph Epstein, also known as Colonel Gilles, was a leader of the French Resistance during the Second World War. He was born Josef Andrej on October 16, 1911 in Zamość, Poland and executed by the Germans in Fort Mont-Valerian, France. Communist organizer Josef Andrej studied law at Warsaw University where he was exposed to, and later joined, the Polish Communist Party. In 1931 he was arrested by the police after speaking at a communist rally but was released after a few weeks. He fled to Czechoslovakia, where he sought asylum, but his plea was rejected. He returned to Poland and was deported by the authorities. In Tours, France where he was organizing immigrants, Epstein met and married Paula Duffau. When the French police were informed by the Polish consulate about his participation in the Communist Party, Epstein was arrested and forced to leave Tours. Epstein and his wife then went to Bordeaux, where they continued their studies. He organized students into a collective and was appointed to the regional committee of the French Communist Party. In 1933, he went to Paris. The following year, he passed his final examination and obtained a law degree; however, he was barred from becoming a lawyer because he was not French. Armed struggle In 1936, he joined the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and took part in the defence of Irun where he was severely wounded. In January 1938, he commanded the artillery battery "Tudor Vladimirescu". Upon returning to France at the end of 1938 he was imprisoned at Camp Gurshttp://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005298, a detention camp for political refugees and members of the International Brigade. In 1939, he joined the Polish army but later resigned and joined the French Foreign Legion. In 1940, he was captured by the Germans and sent to the Stalag IVB concentration camp. He escaped from the camp and went to Switzerland but was deported to Germany. He managed to obtain false papers in the name 'Joseph Epstein' and moved to Paris. With the French Resistance In 1941, he began working with Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP), a communist resistance group; and by February 1943, he was an operation commander in the Paris region. He proposed a new guerilla warfare tactic. Up till this point the FTP was operating in three person cells; one person attacked and two provided covering fire for their escape. He proposed that the teams should have 10 to 15 fighters. Three or four would throw grenades or bombs, and the rest would cover their withdrawal. The FTP knew that a formation of Wehrmacht would take part in a parade in an alley which ended in Stars Square. Epstein's group decided to attack with 12 men. Three of them would attack with grenades while the other nine would secure their withdrawal. Dozens of soldiers were killed or wounded but only one partisan was wounded. German officers reported that their soldiers were attacked by about a hundred guerillas. In the late fall of 1943, the FTP was betrayed, possibly by Joseph Davidovitch, who was a chief of personnel in Missak Manouchian's group. Manouchian was an Armenian poet and an FTP leader. Davidovitch had been arrested by the Gestapo and then released (Davidovitch claimed that he had escaped). On October 16, 1943, Epstein was arrested in Evry-Petit-Bourg during a meeting with Manouchian. He was tortured in Fresnes prison and tried along with 19 other members of the FTP and sentenced to death. He was executed by firing squad on April 11, 1944 in Fort Mont-Valerian. Bibliography Synowie Nocy by Albert Ouzoulias (Colonel Andre), Warsaw 1979, Ministry of National Defence. Also published in French as Les Fils de la Nuit, Paris, Grasset, 1982. External links Epstein, Joseph Epstein, Joseph
|
 |
|
| Copyright 2005-2009 OnPedia.com. All Rights Reserved |
|
|