France Honours 6-Year-Old Marcel Pinte (1938-1944) WW2 Resistance Agent, Anti-Nazi Fighter

[appalachiablue]

BBC News, Nov. 12, 2020. The youngest hero of the French Resistance was just six years old - and finally the name Marcel Pinte has been inscribed on a memorial alongside those of other anti-Nazi fighters. The boy, who carried messages for the Resistance, died tragically in August 1944, when one of the guerrillas' Sten guns went off by accident.

He was honoured on Armistice Day at a ceremony in Aixe-sur-Vienne, near the city of Limoges in central France.

His father was a Resistance leader. Eugène Pinte, alias Athos, ran a Resistance network from the remote family farmhouse in La Gaubertie, a hamlet in the Aixe-sur-Vienne area.

What was Marcel's role? The boy was a liaison agent, carrying secret messages and letters to surrounding farms. "With his school satchel on his back he didn't raise suspicions," said Marc Pinte, grandson of Marcel's father Eugène. Marcel surprised people with his "astonishing" memory and was trusted to deliver messages to Resistance chiefs, which he hid under his shirt. "He understood everything at once," Marc Pinte told the AFP news agency.

He said Marcel was happy to spend time in the woods with Resistance fighters, known as maquisards, learning about their clandestine methods. Eugène, his wife Paule and their five children hosted clandestine farmhouse meetings with Resistance fighters and even hid a British paratrooper in the loft, so it was a hive of activity at night.

Another relative, Alexandre Brémaud, spent years researching Marcel's story, because the official records focused on the Resistance fighters and sabotage operations, rather than on the many helpers - often women and children - who also took risks to defeat the Nazi occupation.

Mr Brémaud told the BBC: "My grandmother described him as an extremely happy, intelligent and brilliant brother, sparkling with mischief".

Marcel was eager to play his part in the struggle against Nazi Germany - and he became an agent nicknamed "Quinquin", or "the little kid".

..Eugène died in 1951, aged 49, and was buried next to his son in Aixe-sur-Vienne...

More, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54919375

- Also: 'France Honors 6 Year Old Quinquin, Youngest Wartime Resistance Hero,' France24
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20201111-france-honours-6-year-old-quinquin-youngest-wartime-resistance-hero




- Marcel with a Resistance fighter.

- Looking Back At The Rise Of The French Resistance. France24.

[burrowowl]

1. A smart and brave boy!

[JudyM]

3. Saluant la memoire

Petit Marcel le Grand.

[Paladin]

4. Spielberg ought to do the movie.

Such a brave and accomplished young man.