Fabien

(real name Georges Pierre). Born 1919 in Paris; died December 1944 in the upper Rhine area. Hero of the French Resistance.

A metalworker, Fabien became a member of the Federation of Communist Youth in 1933 and a member of the French Communist Party in 1936. From 1936 to 1938 he fought in the international brigades in Spain. In 1939 he became secretary of the Federation of Communist Youth in Paris. Fabien was arrested in late 1939, when the French Communist Party was banned, but he escaped from prison in May 1940.

After the fall of France in June 1940, Fabien became one of the first leaders of the Francs-Tireurs and Partisans. On Aug. 21, 1941, he tried to assassinate a Hitlerite officer at the Barbès-Rochechouart metro station in Paris, an act that signaled the beginning of widespread armed resistance to the fascist German invaders. Fabien was a prominent figure in the Paris Uprising of 1944. After the liberation of Paris, he commanded the 151st Infantry Regiment and the Paris 1st Brigade. Fabien was killed at the front.