History
article | Reading time10 min
To mark the 80th anniversary of his execution on 21 February 1944, the Armenian resistance fighter Missak Manouchian enters the Panthéon, accompanied by his wife Mélinée and his comrades.
From Armenia to France
Missak Manouchian was born in 1906 in Adiyaman, in the Ottoman Empire (east of present-day Turkey). After his parents were killed in the Armenian genocide of 1915, he spent several years in a French-speaking orphanage near Beirut, in Lebanon (then under French mandate). It was at this time that his attachment to France was born.
He landed in Marseille in 1924, then moved to Paris, where he studied at the Sorbonne as an auditor, while writing poems and articles for journals on politics and literature.
Mélinée Soukémian was born in Constantinople in 1913. Her parents were killed when she was just two years old, and she was initially taken in by Greek-occupied Smyrna (now Turkey), before being accepted as a refugee by the Kingdom of Greece.
At the end of 1926, she was sent to France to continue her schooling. Following an error in her civil status, Mélinée Soukémian was renamed Mélinée Assadourian.
A life of commitment
Missak Manouchian joined the Communist Party in February 1934 and joined the French section of the Comité de secours de l'Arménie, an organisation linked to the Communist International that aimed to mobilise the Armenian diaspora in support of the Soviet Republic of Armenia.
It was then that he met his future wife Mélinée. Together, they played an important role in the political organisation of Armenians in France, as well as in the fight against the extreme right and for the defence of human rights.
Missak Manouchian applied for naturalisation on two occasions, in 1933 and 1940, but his applications were not granted.
The Resistance and the "Red Poster"
During the Second World War, Mélinée and Missak joined the Resistance against the Nazi occupiers.
In June 1941, when Hitler broke the German-Soviet pact, communist militants were relieved: armed struggle became a priority.
Missak Manouchian joined the Parisian Francs-Tireurs et Partisans de la Main d'Œuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI) in February 1943. They carried out spectacular armed operations, including an attempt on the life of German General Julius Ritter, who was responsible for requisitioning labour as part of the Compulsory Labour Service.
But the Paris police, especially the Special Brigades, were constantly on the lookout for these fighters...
After a long shadowing, Missak Manouchian was arrested in the Paris region on 16 November 1943 by the Special Brigades and handed over to the German authorities with his comrades.
Mélinée managed to escape a roundup by taking refuge with the Aznavourians, Charles Aznavour's family.
After the arrest of the group led by Missak Manouchian, in February 1944 the occupying authorities organised a xenophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-Communist campaign to discredit the actions of these foreign resistance fighters: the "Affiche rouge ".
© Paris Musées
Against all expectations, this poster aroused the sympathy of a large part of the population and became the emblem of the heroism of the men and women who sacrificed their lives to liberate France.
The group of twenty-three
Between 15 and 18 February 1944, twenty-three members of an FTP-MOI group led by Joseph Epstein, known as Colonel Gilles, appeared before a German court martial.
On 21 February 1944, after a sham trial, the verdict came down: all the accused were sentenced to be shot the same day , with the exception of Olga Bancic, the only woman in the group, who was transferred to Germany and beheaded in Stuttgart prison on 10 May 1944.
Joseph Epstein, although arrested with Missak Manouchian on 16 November 1943, was not tried and shot until April 1944.
I am sure that the French people and all freedom fighters will honour our memory with dignity. As I die, I proclaim that I have no hatred for the German people [...]. The German people and all other peoples will live in peace and brotherhood after the war, which will not last much longer. Happiness to all!
The last letters of those condemned to death bear witness to the universalism that drives their struggle. Missak's poignant letter to Mélinée inspired a poem by Louis Aragon and a song by Léo Ferré.
You can read this letter in full on the Éduscol website.
There were twenty-three of them when the guns bloomed
Twenty-three who gave their hearts before their time
Twenty-three strangers and yet our brothers
Twenty-three who loved life to death
Twenty-three who cried out for France as they fell.
The Unfinished Novel
Missak Manouchian's entry into the Panthéon is accompanied by a tribute to the twenty-two men and one woman from the FTP-MOI group sentenced to death on 21 February 1944.
Mélinée after Missak
Mélinée never ceased to honour the memory of her husband and to ensure his posthumous recognition : she published several collections of his poems written in Armenian and founded the Amicale des anciens résistants français d'origine arménienne.
A decree of 30 June 1946 allowed her to be naturalised "as a Resistance fighter or resident since 1939", like thousands of immigrants.
She was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour on 31 December 1986, three years before her death in December 1989.
An exhibition not to be missed
To mark the entry into the Panthéon of Missak Manouchian, accompanied by his wife Mélinée and his Resistance comrades, discover the exceptional story behind these great figures by visiting the exhibition "Vivre à en mourir. Missak Manouchian and his Resistance comrades at the Panthéon", from 23 February to 8 September 2024.
To go further
Discover the poetic work of Missak Manouchian, translated in full for the first time, published by Points.
Ivre d'un grand rêve de liberté is a collection of 56 poems by Missak Manouchian, including some previously unpublished poems translated for the first time in France in a magnificent bilingual edition.
© éditions Points