Marcel Langer

Marcel (Mendel) Langer was born on May 13, 1903, in Oswiecim (now Auschwitz in Poland; at the time, Austrian Galicia).

Fleeing anti-Semitic persecution, the family emigrated to British Mandate Palestine in 1920. Very soon after, Langer became active in the Palestinian Communist Party.

Pursued by British police, he fled to France, settled in Paris, and then, in 1931, moved to Toulouse, where he worked as a miller and fitter. He was active in the M.O.I.

In 1936, he enlisted very early on in the International Brigades to defend the Spanish Republic, which was under attack by fascist forces. He first joined the Polish Brigade and then the 35th Machine-Gun Division, rising to the rank of lieutenant. The defeat of the Spanish Republicans forced him to leave his wife, whom he had married in Spain, and his daughter. He was interned in the camps at Argelès and then at Gurs.

He managed to escape with the help of communist activists and arrived in Toulouse in July 1939. He organized the resistance of Jews who immigrated to France within the M.O.I. After the German army occupied the southern zone on November 11, 1942, he formed one of the first FTP-M.O.I. groups in the south. He became the first commander of the 35th Brigade formed in the Toulouse region (named in memory of the 35th Division of the International Brigades). This brigade took part in numerous operations against the occupying forces.

On February 5, 1943, he was arrested at the Toulouse train station while carrying a suitcase filled with explosives supplied by Polish Resistance miners from the Carmaux mines.

During Langer’s trial, Prosecutor Lespinasse demanded the death penalty: “You are a Jew, a foreigner, and a communist—three reasons for me to demand your head.” On March 11, 1943, Langer was sentenced to death by a French court acting under orders from the occupying forces.

He was incarcerated at the Saint-Michel Prison in Toulouse. When he left his cell on July 23, 1943, to be guillotined, he shouted, according to the execution report: “Long live France! Down with the Krauts! Long live the Communist Party.” ” At that very moment, the inmates in neighboring cells began singing the Marseillaise, as Mendel—as he was known in prison—was very popular among his fellow inmates.

His comrades avenged him a few months later by executing Prosecutor Lespinasse. Until the Liberation, no magistrate in Toulouse would ever again seek the death penalty on political grounds.

After his execution, the 35th Brigade was renamed the Marcel Langer Brigade; its members distinguished themselves in numerous acts of Resistance against the occupying forces in Toulouse and the surrounding region until April 1944, when the group was dismantled by the Vichy French police.

Marcel Langer is buried at the Terre-Caba Cemetery in Toulouse; his grave is adorned with a bust of him created by the Toulouse sculptor Sylvestre Clerc.