Missak and Mélinée Manouchian entered the Pantheon on Thursday February 21, 80 years after the death of Missak and the group of resistance fighters who bear his name, shot at Mont-Valérien. Today, there are few witnesses to the Nazi occupation in Paris, to the Vichy militia, to the resistance which was then organized district by district in the large occupied cities. Robert Birenbaum is one of them. He publishes 16 years old, resistant (Stock), a book in which he returns to his involvement with the FTP, these Francs-Tireurs and Partisans of which Manouchian was a member. He testifies on franceinfo.
franceinfo: Sixteen years old, resistant. This is the title of the book you are publishing with Stock. It is also the summary of a part of your life. It is a book in which you return to this commitment which was born the day after the Vel d’Hiv roundup from which you escaped. You then become an agent particularly linked to the recruitment of the FTP, these Francs-Tireurs and partisans of which Missak Manouchian was a member. FTPs that you had to integrate when you learned of the arrest of the Manouchian group. It is now November 17, 1943. Do you remember that day today?
Robert Birenbaum: Like it was yesterday. I was at the top of the metro, at Père-Lachaise, opposite the cemetery where I had a meeting with someone from the group. And at that moment, a young woman came rushing up the stairs and passed me, saying: “Guy, no draft” [“Guy” est le nom de résistant qu’il s’est choisi]. At that time, there were alerts, we had appointments that we couldn’t make, so we always had a “draft”. And that day when she told me “no draft”I understood immediately that there was a catastrophe.
Who was Manouchian at that time, for a young person under 20 like you at that time? What was the Manouchian group, the Red Poster group, in your eyes?
You know, before seeing the poster, I didn’t know there was a Manouchian group. I knew him afterwards, of course. We formed the Rajman company, named after one of the people who were shot. [Marcel Rajman, fusillé le 21 février 1944 en même temps que Manoukian. La compagnie juive, au sein du bataillon Liberté du 1er régiment de Paris, a pris son nom]. Our battalion commander was Boris Holban, Manouchian’s “boss”.
It takes us back to a time of clandestinity, of constant tracking, and of fear too. Do we live with fear every day in Paris?
Maybe we were a little unconscious. I can’t say I was scared, I was so well looked after. I had friends who were great. Extraordinary.
The fame of Manouchian and this group paradoxically came from the Red Poster, this propaganda poster organized by the French collaboration.
Before seeing the poster, we didn’t know the names of all these boys! This poster, of course I remember it. Oh dear ! I saw her all the time, in the metro, then everywhere… She is anchored in me.
How did people react when they saw this poster, this “army of crime” that was presented by Nazi propaganda?
You know, France was divided at the time. We were really special, we were young communists… Not everyone was a communist at that time, don’t be fooled! Far from there ! De Gaulle, from afar, had said: we are going to send you weapons, but you leave them hidden, do not take action against the Germans. This was not De Gaulle’s watchword at the time. And we didn’t obey. We went to get the weapons, we didn’t have any. Our job was, everywhere, to try to find weapons for our friends. I was one of the only ones to have a pistol. A 6.35 that I always carried with me, and that I lent several times for shares.
Communist youth, and often foreign youth who fought, who shed their blood for France without always having nationality, without having their papers, who were chased out by the French. Is it this symbol, too, that of the entry into the Pantheon of Missak and Mélinée Manouchian?
Of course. I was French. I was born in Paris on July 21, 1926 with parents who had fled Poland, my mother was pregnant when she arrived and she gave birth in Paris. So I am French by birth. Parisian!
Did we check whether the friends were French or foreign at that time?
No of course not.
Manouchian and 21 of his group comrades were shot 80 years ago in Mont-Valérien. On February 20, 2024, the day before the ceremony at the Pantheon, it was in the center of this clearing that Manouchian’s coffin was enthroned, with this blue, white and red flag, with this light which illuminated it in the winter night. What does this symbol mean to you?
For me, it’s extraordinary. I remember one of our first visits, immediately after the Liberation, when we knew how to march in step: it was I who led the Rajman company to Mont-Valérien. It was 1944. We came to honor our dead. So for me, returning to Mont-Valérien is something phenomenal. This day of June 18 when I was decorated by the President of the Republic, I would never have imagined such a thing.
It was June 8, 2023. You then received the Legion of Honor. And right next to you, there is Missak Manouchian’s great-niece.
That’s extraordinary. The first thing I said to the president, when he gave me the medal, was: you know, I’ll take the medal, but it’s not for me. I take it for my friends, for those who were shot here. The medal belongs to them. And that day, I didn’t know that next to me, there was Manouchian’s niece listening to me. And she was very moved by my words, she was in tears. And when I finished with the president, she came and hugged me, she kissed me. For me, it’s the happiest day of my life.
And these two coffins enter the Pantheon on Wednesday February 21.
It’s an emotion… It’s not possible. I’m happy for my family, I’m happy for myself, of course, but I’m especially happy for my friends. It’s them I’m thinking of. I am supposedly the last. I was one of the first, I am supposedly the last. I’m also going to meet another resistance fighter, we’re going to meet, he’s the same age as me and he was a Franc-Tireur.
If you could have whispered a few words into the ears of Missak and Mélinée Manouchian as they entered the Pantheon, what would you say to them?
I would say congratulations to them. He is a man of remarkable intelligence. When I think that he is a poet, a guy who loved France, who said it, who fought for it, like all of us… It’s very moving. It’s a reward I never imagined. I didn’t do that to get medals, I did it because I was French and I loved France. Like them. So there. You know, during the war, right at the beginning, in my neighborhood, which is now Stalingrad, I was often called a dirty Jew. My greatest pride was the day of the Liberation of Paris, when I was seen on a barricade and I returned with my machine gun on my shoulder, those who had called me a dirty Jew applauded me in the street. These are unforgettable moments.