Nicolaie Cristea
Cristea, Nicolaie
Born Nov. 26, 1906, in Galaţi; died Mar. 13, 1943, in Paris. Figure in the Rumanian labor and antifascist movement. Member of the Communist party of Rumania (CPR) from 1929.
Cristea was the son of a dockhand and worked as a roofer. At the time of the Griviţa strike, in January and February 1933, he was one of the organizers of a movement for solidarity with the strikers. Elected a member of the bureau of the Bucharest city committee of the CPR in 1933, Cristea fought in the international brigades in Spain from 1936 to 1939. In 1939 he emigrated to France, where he was interned and put in a concentration camp. He escaped from the camp in 1940, joined the French Resistance Movement, and became a leader of the First Rumanian Detachment of the French Partisans’ Military National Committee. In October 1942, Cristea was arrested by the Gestapo; he was subsequently tortured and shot.