17. The Heroic Antifascist Who Smiled in the Face of Death
Heroic Resistance fighter Georges Blind (1904 – 1944) of Belfort, France, became famous when a photo surfaced of him smiling at a German firing squad. Before WWII, Blind was a fireman and ambulance driver. After the Germans conquered France, he decided to do his part to take on the Nazis. Blind took his first steps towards joining the antifascist fight just a few months into the occupation, when he and others sheltered a statue of Edith Cavell, a WWI heroine executed by the Germans.
Blind eventually became a resistance courier. He used his ambulance to transport weapons, information, clandestine publications, and fugitives on the run from the Nazis. He was arrested by the Germans on October 14th, 1944, and jailed. At some point between October 15th and 23rd, he was placed before a German firing squad, and somebody took a photo that immortalized him as a symbol of the resistance. In it, Georges Blind can be seen smiling in the face of death, as German rifles are aimed at him.