Robert Endewelt was born in Paris on October 26, 1923, shortly after his parents—Polish immigrants from Warsaw—arrived in France. He learned the tailor’s trade from them and took evening classes in mechanics at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, but after his father’s death in May 1940, he found a job in the garment industry.
In the weeks following the German troops’ entry into Paris, he joined the group of young communists in the 10th arrondissement.
As early as 1941, he joined the Union of Young Jewish Communists of the M.O.I. (UJCJ or JCJ), which brought together young people of Eastern European immigrant background, to wage a specific struggle as persecution against Jews intensified. “It was through this specific branch of the M.O.I. that we joined the National Resistance with this dual objective: to act on behalf of France, our country, and to oppose by all means the plan of extermination that threatened our families,” he would later write.
In June 1942, Robert Endewelt went underground under the name Gabriel Rapert, or “Gaby.” He became a member of the UJCJ’s leadership trio in Paris and the outer suburbs and, together with Henri Krasucki and Madeleine Wileszenski, prepared for the transfer of young members to the FTP-M.O.I.
In May 1943, he helped found the UJJ (Union of Jewish Youth), which brought together young Jews eager to fight against the occupying forces, regardless of their political views. After the arrest of some fifty young Jewish communists by the Special Brigades, Robert Endewelt-Gaby became the head of the UJJ in the Paris region until the Liberation.
In the spring of 1944, he was one of the organizers of the Jewish Patriotic Militias. During the August 1944 uprising, some 200 young people took part in the fighting to liberate Paris.
Robert Endewelt, who enlisted as a volunteer in the FFI 51/22 Battalion, serving in the Rayman Company, spent the remainder of the war in Germany with a regiment of Algerian riflemen.
Until his death in Paris on October 17, 2018, he devoted himself to preserving the memory of the Resistance through his work with several organizations.
References:
— AACCE (Association of Friends of the Commission Centrale de l’Enfance), 2009, *The Jewish Resistance in France (1940–1945)*. Published by AACCE
— ANACR (National Association of Resistance Veterans), edited by Robert Endewelt and René Le Prévost, 2005, *The Resistance in Paris’s19th Arrondissement*. Published by Le Temps des cerises.
— Photo: Le Maitron (DR)
