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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

18. Success and Martyrdom

Moulin’s success made him a target. In June, 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo during a meeting near Lyon. He had most likely been betrayed by a Resistance member. Moulin was interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo’s Klaus Barbie, the infamous “Butcher of Lyon”, but revealed no vital information. He was ordered transported to Germany, but died from his injuries en route, likely around July 8^th, 1943.

Jean Moulin’s legacy lives on in France. He is commemorated as a national hero, and in 1964, his ashes were symbolically interred in the Panthéon. It was a moving a powerful ceremony that honored Moulin as the embodiment of the Resistance spirit: a man who, in France’s darkest hour, chose unity over division, and sacrifice over submission.

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.