Guy Môquet
Guy Môquet (26 April 1924 - 22 October 1941 (aged 17)) was a young French Communist militant. During the German occupation of France during World War II, he was taken hostage by the Nazis and executed by firing squad in retaliation for attacks on Germans by the French Resistance. Môquet went down in history as one of the symbols of the French Resistance.
Guy Prosper Eustache Môquet was born on 26 April 1924 in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. He studied at the Lycée Carnot and joined the Communist Youth Movement. After the occupation of Paris by the Germans and the installation of the Vichy government, he was denounced on 13 October 1940 and arrested at the Gare de l'Est metro station by three police officers of the French Anti-Communist Special Brigade. He had with him a poem about three of his arrested comrades, handwritten by him:
[…]
«Les traîtres de notre pays
Ces agents du capitalisme
Nous les chasserons hors d’ici
Pour instaurer le socialisme
[…]
Pour vous sortir de la prison
Pour tuer le capitalisme»
[…]
[…]
"The traitors of our country
These agents of capitalism
We will drive them away
In order to establish socialism
[…]
To get you out of jail
To kill capitalism"
[…]
Imprisoned in Fresnes Prison, then in Clairvaux, he was later transferred to the camp at Châteaubriant, where other Communist militants were detained.
On 20 October 1941, the commanding officer of the German occupation forces in Loire-Atlantique, Karl Hotz, was assassinated by three communist resisters. Pierre Pucheu, Interior Minister of the government of Marshal Philippe Pétain, chose Communist prisoners to be given as hostages “in order to avoid letting 50 good French people get shot.” His selection comprised 18 imprisoned in Nantes, 27 at Châteaubriant, and 5 from Nantes who were imprisoned in Paris.
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