Jean Moulin

Born June 20, 1899, in Béziers, France; died July 8, 1943, near Frankfurt am Main. Hero of the French Resistance.

Moulin was prefect of the department of Eure-et-Loir when fascist German troops invaded France in June 1940; he responded as a patriot and a democrat. In November 1940 he was removed from his post by the Vichy government. In 1941 he joined the Free French movement in London and in January 1942 became the representative of the French National Committee (FNC) in the southern zone of France. There he helped coordinate the operations of Resistance organizations and establish liaison between these organizations and the FNC.

In February 1943, Moulin was appointed the general representative of the FNC for all of France. He was one of the founders of the National Council of the Resistance and became its first chairman on May 27, 1943. On June 21, 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo. He was brutally tortured and died during deportation to Germany. In 1964, Moulin’s ashes were transferred to the Pantheon. A monument to Moulin has been erected in Chartres, the capital of the department of Eure-et-Loir.,