(1924–1943)
Maurice Korzec was born on April 9, 1924, in Herserange, in the Moselle department. His family, of Polish Jewish origin, moved to Paris, where they settled in the 19th arrondissement.
In 1939, at the age of 15, he began an apprenticeship at the ORT (Organization for Reconstruction and Work), a Jewish educational and training institution. He then found a job at an aircraft factory.
Refusing to work for the occupying forces, he left for Marseille in 1941—in the so-called “free zone”—and became a tailor at a clothing factory. A labor activist, he was also a member of the clandestine Communist Youth. In November 1942, after the Germans entered the southern zone, he took part in numerous attacks alongside the Marseille Resistance fighters.
On March 1, 1943, he joined the Marat detachment (FTP-M.O.I.), where he was appointed leader of a group and took part in numerous operations: bombing a German barracks, blowing up seven transformers, destroying six locomotives, and blowing up 12 tank cars at the Arenc train station…
To carry out all these actions, he often disguises himself as a street sweeper, a railroad worker, or a girl…
On June 5, 1943, he and two comrades threw a bomb into a movie theater that had been requisitioned for German soldiers. Wounded, he was arrested under the alias Henri Marcellin, tortured for two months, and then transferred to Fort Montluc in Lyon. Sentenced to death by a German court, he was executed by firing squad on September 13, 1943, at the age of 19.
The Marat FTP-M.O.I. detachment was then renamed the Maurice Korzec Company.
A plaque at Marseille City Hall commemorates that “Maurice Korzec and Marcel Bonin attacked the Germans and gave their lives so that France might live on.” On a monument at the top of the Canebière, a plaque commemorates the young Resistance fighter: “The UJRE in memory of their comrade-in-arms, Maurice Korzec.”
References:
— Diamant David, 1984, Heroic Fighters and Martyrs of the Resistance. Published by Renouveau.
— Photo: Yad Vashem
