Death at 101 of Cécile Rol-Tanguy, heroine of the Resistance

The heroine of the Resistance Cécile Rol-Tanguy on August 25, 2009, during the commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris. Bertrand GUAY / AFP

Text by: Philippe Lecaplain

One of the figures of the Resistance Cécile Rol-Tanguy died at the age of 101, the day of the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. She was one of the last figures of the French Interior Resistance, widow of Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, one of the main actors in the Liberation of Paris, who died in 2002.

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After four years in hiding, on August 18, 1944, it was she who, on her typewriter, typed the order for the Parisian insurrection: " France is calling you!" To arms, citizens ! " The text is dictated to her by her husband, whom she met just before the war at the CGT metallurgy union. Under the Resistance, he became the military leader of the French Interior Forces of Ile-de-France. A week later, it's the Liberation of Paris. On August 26, she attended the General de Gaulle parade on the Champs-Elysées.

Twitter Caen Memorial Cécile Rol Tanguy

#WWII #Hommage Heroine of the Resistance and figure of the Liberation of #Paris, Cécile Rol-Tanguy died at 101 years old.
On August 18, 1944, she and her husband Henri Rol-Tanguy wrote the order for the Parisian insurrection. This insurrection led to the Liberation of Paris. pic.twitter.com/Wc7rbqUuqr

  The Caen Memorial (@CaenMemorial) May 8, 2020

Out of love and duty, Cécile Rol-Tanguy took all the risks for the "colonel". She had become his war godmother when he joined the International Brigades in Spain. Then his fiancée at the beginning of 1938, during a leave. War broke out and both entered the Resistance. She becomes the secretary and the liaison of a man whom she sees little, because he goes from hideout to hideout. She lives with her mother and uses borrowed names for her missions.

In the pram that transports his daughter and then his son, "Yvette" or "Lucie" hides leaflets and sensitive documents for the communist network of FTPs (snipers and partisans) to which they belong. Under the vegetables and the loaf of bread from his shopping bag, pistols, machine guns, grenades and detonators await delivery to the soldiers of the shadow army. His hatred of Nazism was reinforced by the death of his father, a communist activist, deported to Auschwitz in 1942.

In this photo taken on August 23, 2004, Cécile Rol-Tanguy (3rd L), during ceremonies in tribute to her husband, Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, on August 24, 2004. DANIEL JANIN / AFP

In Monteaux, in the Loir-et-Cher where she died just after the commemoration ceremonies for the end of the Second World War, she continued to read the newspapers, including the communist newspaper "L'Huma". " Until his last breath, Cécile Rol-Tanguy will demonstrate his loyalty to the generous utopia of communism, to his youthful commitments to social justice and the emancipation of women ", greets his family.

This figure of the Resistance had been honored by the highest distinctions of the Republic (Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, Grand Cross in the National Order of Merit, Medal of the Resistance, Cross of the Volunteer Resistance Fighter). Cécile Rol-Tanguy was emblematic of the place of women in the fight against Vichy and the Nazi occupier  ," said his family.

For further :

RFI had devoted a section to Cécile Rol-Tanguy in her computer graphics Résistantes à 20 ans.

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