Born Bianca Marcusohn pen name: Cristina Luca
Cristina Boïco, a Romanian Jew, was born on August 8, 1916, in Botosani. At a very young age, she joined the underground Communist Youth movement. A biology student in Bucharest, she moved to France in 1938 to further her education. In Paris, she moved in progressive scientific circles and was active in the fight against fascism.
In 1941, she joined the Organisation Spéciale (OS) created by the Communists and became involved in the armed struggle within the M.O.I. She joined the FTP-M.O.I. when it was founded in 1942, as part of the Romanian group. Close to military leader Boris Holban, whom she had met in Bucharest, she took charge of the FTP-M.O.I. Paris intelligence service. In 1943, she planned and organized, among other things, the successful assassination attempt against Ritter, the Nazi leader of the STO.
Cristina Boïco escaped the wave of arrests that decimated the FTP-M.O.I. and continued her fight as a combatant until the end of the war.
After the Liberation, she returned to Romania, where she held various positions.
A victim of the Ceausescu regime’s “purges,” she left her country in 1987 and settled in France. She died on April 16, 2002, in Paris.
References:
— Boïco Cristina, 1994, “With the Parisian FTP” in *Regards sur la mémoire*, personal account. ANACR of the 18th arrondissement of Paris.
— Stéphane Courtois, Denis Peschanski, Adam Rayski, 1989, *Le Sang de l’étranger*, Paris, Fayard.
— Photo: private collection (DR)
