Around the world workers are celebrating 1st of May. I too will be celebrating, but for different reasons. Today Marcel Rayman – my first cousin twice removed – would have turned 86.
Born in Warsaw, he moved to France aged eight. A studious boy, he finished his exams in record time and went to work with his parents as a tailor. By all accounts he showed great promised.
Unfortunately, we will never know what things Marcel would have gone on to do for his life was cut short one February morning in 1944, when the Nazis executed him.
For between the German invasion of France and early 1944, the young Marcel had became one of France’s most notorious resistance fighters. As part of FTP-MOI, a famous resistance unit made up largely of immigrants, Marcel terrorised the Nazi occupation forces, killing 13 soldiers in various attacks.
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