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Remarkable Heroes and Heroines of the French Resistance in World War II

Khalid Elhassan May 12, 2025 18 min

Resistance - Women and men of the French Resistance — Women and men of the French Resistance. Pegasus Battlefield Tours

9. Smiling in the Face of Death

German occupation soldiers in France. NPR

As a fireman, Blind had a pass that allowed him to drive fire trucks and ambulances between Belfort and Alsace. He eventually became a Resistance courier, and used his ambulance to transport fugitives fleeing the Nazis, weapons, information, and clandestine publications. He was arrested by the Germans on October 14^th, 1944, and jailed.

At some point between October 15^th and 23^rd, he was placed before a firing squad, and somebody took the photo that captured his courage, smiling in the face of death. It immortalized him as an anti-fascist symbol of the Resistance. Literally smiling in the face of death has to be one of the manliest ways to shuffle off the mortal coil. However, unbeknownst to Blind, he was not to die that day.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.