16. Georges Blind Paid With His Life for Refusing to Snitch on His Comrades to the Nazis
The photograph of the heroic Georges Blind calmly smiling at his executioners as they aimed their rifles at him became a powerful symbol of the antifascist struggle. Literally smiling in the face of death has to be one of the manliest ways to meet one’s fate. However, unbeknownst to Blind, he was not destined to die that day. It was a mock execution, used by the Germans as psychological torture in an attempt to scare him into snitching on his resistance comrades.
Blind refused to snitch, so on October 24th, 1944, he was sent to Dachau concentration camp, where he arrived on the 29th. From Dachau, he was sent to Auschwitz, and arrived there on November 24th. There, he was killed by lethal injection on November 30th, 1944. He was posthumously promoted to sergeant in the French Forces of the Interior. He was also posthumously awarded a Croix de Guerre, a Medaille Militaire, a Resistance Medal, and an Honor Medal for Fighters for exceptional services.