who was Rino della Negra, this Red Star footballer and member of the Manouchian group?

As Missak Manouchian and his wife enter the Pantheon on Wednesday, a plaque with the name of each member of their group will be placed at the entrance to the vault. Among them, Rino della Negra, football player at Red Star and resistance fighter from the Manouchian group.

Missak Manouchian enters the Panthéon, Wednesday February 21, with his wife Mélinée. Through this couple, an entire group is pantheonized. Franceinfo tells you the story of one of these resistance fighters. Rino della Negra, worker, very talented football player and member of the partisan snipers, opposed the Nazi occupiers. Like his “comrades”, he was shot at Mont Valérien 80 years ago.

The story of Rino della Negra is hardly believable. This son of Italian immigrants plays football at Red Star under his real name, where he wreaks havoc as a striker, and at the same time leads around fifteen clandestine actions with his brothers in arms, most of them foreigners. , communists and anti-fascists. With this Manouchian group, he carries out targeted attacks on the occupants and collaborators. He also carries out acts of sabotage.

For his descendants, this pantheonization is very important. “It’s a source of pride. Maybe a little late, certainly,” assures Patrice della Negra, Rino’s nephew. “My parents talked about it very little, it was taboo. Rino wasn’t supposed to say anything, no one knew, he continues. He was playing football and behind he was going to fight against the Germans. So at home, we never talked about it. Yes, we went to the cemetery, we went to the grave.”

“Her mother was silent… We called her black granny, she was always in black. She mourned her whole life. I say to myself: what must she have suffered this woman, for not being able to talk about it!”

Patrice della Negra

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Anna della Negra received by mail the clothes, stained with blood and riddled with bullets, of her son Rino, who was shot on February 21, 1944 at Mont Valérien.

Red Star supporters keep his memory alive

If the name and memory of Rino della Negra is maintained, it is mainly thanks to the supporters of his Red Star club, which currently plays in National, the third level of French football. At the Bauer stadium, in Saint-Ouen in Seine-St-Denis, a stand, that of the kop, bears his name. In the café opposite, when we ask “Polo”, a regular of the place, what the name Rino della Negra reminds him of, he responds straight away: “The resistance! Red Star is the resistance. It’s a legendary club.”

So it’s in this cafe “The Olympic” that Diminitri Manessis, historian, gave us an appointment with. He wrote a book with Jean Vigreux, Rino della Negra, footballer and supporter, published by Libertalia. “I think what touched me was seeing that a young worker from the suburbs, who is crazy about football and whose football is almost the only passion in life, finds himself in for the space of a few weeks, part of an elite resistance fighter in the Paris region, he assures. And how it is through his environment, in this red suburb in which he grew up, that he gradually manages to join the resistance. It’s quite crazy to see how destinies can change.”

“We are Red Star fans, we come from the red suburbs and the Rino (the name of the stand) always gets excited about the Red Star (the nickname of the Red Star).”

A song from Red Star supporters

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At Red Star, which is currently leader of National, there are scarves in Rino’s name and songs perpetuate his memory. “We see that these songs combine both the working culture of the Parisian suburbs and also the exploits, both sporting and resistant, of young Rino.”

Rino and his brothers in arms are arrested and tortured after a merciless hunt by specialized brigades of the French police. A police force of 200 agents and inspectors who had a single mission: to track down the communist resistance.

A plaque at the Pantheon with the name of each member

In fact, only the coffin of Missak Manouchian and his wife Mélinée enters the Pantheon. But there will be a plaque at the entrance to the vault with the name of each member of the group. “I want to say that this is not the pantheonization of a single man. We never fight alone, we do not win alone, Judge Patricia Mirralès is Secretary of State, responsible for Veterans and Memory. What they did for France, the love of their homeland even though they were foreigners… We must show our youth that foreigners loved their homeland to the point of death. And so it’s not a person who comes in. It’s all people.”

Twenty-three names will therefore be registered. Those shot on February 21, 1944 but also Olga Bancic, deported, imprisoned and guillotined in Stuttgart on May 10, 1944 as well as Joseph Epstein, the leader of the francs-tireurs and partisans in the Paris region, shot on April 11, 1944. All, heroes for a long time forgotten people to whom the homeland will today show its gratitude.