The Affiche Rouge is a notorious propaganda poster, distributed by Vichy France and German authorities in the spring of 1944 in occupied Paris, to discredit 23 immigrant French Resistance fighters, members of the Manouchian Group. The term Affiche Rouge also refers more broadly to the circumstances surrounding the poster's creation and distribution, the capture, trial and execution of these members of the Manouchian Group.
The Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d'œuvre immigrée (FTP-MOI) were a sub-group of the Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTP) organization, a component of the French Resistance. A wing composed mostly of foreigners, the MOI maintained an armed force to oppose the German occupation of France during World War II. The Main-d'œuvre immigrée was the "Immigrant Movement" of the FTP.
The Belgian Resistance collectively refers to the resistance movements opposed to the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Within Belgium, resistance was fragmented between many separate organizations, divided by region and political stances. The resistance included both men and women from both Walloon and Flemish parts of the country. Aside from sabotage of military infrastructure in the country and assassinations of collaborators, these groups also published large numbers of underground newspapers, gathered intelligence and maintained various escape networks that helped Allied airmen trapped behind enemy lines escape from German-occupied Europe.
The Dimitrov Battalion was part of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. It was the 18th battalion formed, and was named after Georgi Dimitrov, a Bulgarian communist and General Secretary of the Comintern in that period.
The Mechelen transit camp, officially SS-Sammellager Mecheln in German, also known as the Dossin barracks, was a detention and deportation camp established in a former army barracks at Mechelen in German-occupied Belgium. It served as a point to gather Belgian Jews and Romani ahead of their deportation to concentration and extermination camps in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust.
Thomas Elek, also known as Tamás Elek and KERPAL was one of 22 members of the French Resistance convicted and executed at the fort of Mont Valérien as one of the Manouchian Group, part of the French liberation army FTP-MOI. After the executions, the Vichy government sought to discredit the resistance members, and widely distributed and posted thousands of copies of the Affiche Rouge. Named for its red background, the poster featured ten of the Manouchian group, including Elek. It identified him as "Elek Juif Hongrois 8 déraillements".
The Main-d'œuvre immigrée was a French trade unionist organisation, composed of immigrant workers of the Confédération générale du travail unitaire (CGTU) in the 1920s. The MOI was affiliated to the Profintern. The MOI was initially named Main d'œuvre étrangère, but the French Communist Party, who in practice were in charge, changed the name from étrangère (foreign) to immigrée (immigrant) due to perceived xenophobia during the 1930s.
The Österreichische Freiheitsfront was an antifascist organization created by Austrian and German communist refugees in Brussels and Paris during the Second World War occupation of Belgium and France by Nazi Germany. It took an active part in the Belgian and French Resistance.
The Independent Front was a left-wing faction of the Belgian Resistance in German-occupied Belgium in World War II. It was founded in March 1941 by Dr Albert Marteaux of the Communist Party of Belgium, Father André Roland, and Fernand Demany, another communist. The aim of the organisation was to unite Belgian resistance groups of all opinions and political leanings; nonetheless the only political party that was affiliated as such was the Communist Party. The FI operated a significant propaganda, social and paramilitary organization, in addition to its military and sabotage functions and operated in competition with the larger pro-government Secret Army.
Yvonne Jospa was a cofounder and leading organizer of the Comité de Défense des Juifs in September 1942 with her husband Hertz Jospa, which saved over 3,000 Jewish children from deportation and death. Yvonne Jaspar was her pseudonym in the Belgian Resistance.
The Union des progressistes juifs de Belgique is a Belgian Jewish organization set up in 1939 as Solidarité juive by antifascist Jews in Belgium, becoming in 1946 Solidarité juive, aide aux victimes de l'oppresseur nazi. It took on its present name in 1969.
Philipp Johann Adolf Schmitt was a German officer of the Schutzstaffel (SS) who served as commandant of Fort Breendonk, a Nazi prison camp in German-occupied Belgium during World War II. For a year, he was also in charge of Mechelen transit camp but was dismissed for corruption and black marketeering. He later served in occupied Denmark and the Netherlands. After the war, he was convicted of war crimes and was executed in 1950. Schmitt was the last person executed in Belgium.
The Armed Partisans was a faction of the resistance in German-occupied Belgium in World War II. The group was affiliated to the Belgian Communist Party. In 1941, many of its members left to join the Front de l'Independance while the rest of the group was undermined in 1943 when almost all the leadership of the group and the Communist Party were arrested by German forces. It was renamed the Belgian Army of Partisans' after the Liberation of Belgium in September 1944.
The Holocaust in Belgium was the systematic dispossession, deportation, and murder of Jews and Roma in German-occupied Belgium during World War II. Out of about 66,000 Jews in the country in May 1940, around 28,000 were murdered during the Holocaust.
Maxime Steinberg (1936–2010) was a Belgian historian and teacher who wrote extensively on the Holocaust in Belgium. He has been described as "Belgium's principal Holocaust historian" and was best known for his three-part history of the subject entitled L'Étoile et le Fusil, published in 1983–87.
Arnaud Fraiteur was a Belgian resistance fighter. He was born in Ixelles on 23 May 1924 and died on 10 May 1943 in Fort Breendonk. He was hanged by the Germans for assassinating the Belgian collaborator Paul Colin.
A roundup is a police operation of interpellation and arrest of people taken at random from a public place, or targeting a particular population by ethnicity, appearance, or other perceived membership in a targeted group. To ensure operational success, organizers rely on the element of surprise in order to reduce the risk of evasion as much as possible. When the operation involves large numbers of individuals not targeted for any perceived group membership, it may be called a mass arrest.
Icek (Jacques) Glogowski, nicknamed 'le gros Jacques', was a Belgian Jew of Polish origin. Glogowski was an informant to the occupying authorities and Nazi collaborator in Belgium, responsible for the deportation of hundreds of Jews.
Antonina Grégoire was a Belgian business engineer, feminist and communist. She joined the Belgian Partisans Armés resistance during the Second World War, and ran an intelligence gathering section, then post war became involved in politics before being expelled from the Communist Party because of her "bourgeois origins".
