Danielle Casanova

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Danielle Casanova on a postage stamp from the GDR Deutsche Post (1962)

Danielle Casanova , née Vincentella Perini (born January 9, 1909 in Ajaccio in Corsica , † May 9, 1943 in Auschwitz ), was a French communist and member of the Resistance .

Life

Danielle Casanova grew up as the daughter of teachers with four siblings. As a young woman, she moved to Paris , where she studied dentistry and began to get involved in the Union fédérale des étudiants , a student organization for members and students close to the French Communist Party that existed from 1926 to 1938. It was there that she met the lawyer Laurent Casanova , whom she married in 1933. In 1928 she joined the Mouvement Jeunes Communistes de France . Danielle and her husband were involved in left-wing politics, publicly and in student circles. Their small apartment was often a meeting place for the local Corsicans. Here the maquis , the French resistance, immediately found ideal contact persons against collaborators and German occupiers during the Second World War .

In 1936 she founded the Union of Young French Women (Union des Jeunes Filles de France) , a girls' organization of the French Communist Party . After this party was banned in September 1939, she continued to work underground until she was arrested in February 1942.

She organized study groups and political demonstrations in the French prison La Santé and later in the Romainville prison camp . On their initiative, every companion condemned to death or evacuation was greeted demonstratively and said goodbye with songs in solidarity. On January 24, 1943, she, too, was deported to Auschwitz together with 230 Resistance fighters . Survivors reported that Danielle Casanova appeared optimistic and organized political work and study among inmates. On May 9, 1943, she died of typhus in Auschwitz .

Commemoration

Rue Danielle-Casanova

The painter Boris Taslitzky dedicated a 194 × 308 cm oil painting to her in 1949, entitled La Mort de Danielle Casanova , which is now on display in the Musée de l'histoire vivante in Montreuil . In 1962, the German Post of the GDR issued a postage stamp with your portrait, the sale of which benefited the establishment and maintenance of the national memorials and memorials of the German Democratic Republic . In France, the Boulevard Danielle-Casanova in Sète , the Rue Danielle-Casanova in Paris, Belfort , Gauchy , Halluin , schools in Givors and Vitry-sur-Seine and in 2002 a ferry of the Société nationale maritime Corse Méditerranée were named after her.

See also

literature

  • Pierre Durand: Danielle Casanova, l'indomptable. éditions Messidor, Paris 1990 (French).
  • Heroes of the resistance struggle against fascism and war. (Series of publications by VVN 1-4) VVN Verlag, Berlin 1951.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mechtild Gilzmer: Resistance and Collaboration in Europe . LIT Verlag Münster, 2004, p. 96.
  2. ↑ 27 January: The numbers 31625-31854 are assigned to 230 female political prisoners from France who were brought to Auschwitz from Romainville. Among the women are Danielle Casanova (No. 31655), Maie Politzer, Helene Solomon-Langevin, Ivonne Blech, Henriette Schmidt and Raymonde Salez. In: Danuta Czech: Calendar of events in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Reinbek, 1989, p. 394
  3. ↑ Arte TV: Women in Resistance ( Memento from September 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), from March 10, 2005.
  4. ↑ Boris Taslitzky website: Musée de l'histoire vivante . Retrieved October 24, 2014
  5. ^ Société Nationale Maritime Corse Méditerranée: Danielle Casanova
personal data
SURNAME Casanova, Danielle
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Perini, Vincentella (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French communist and member of the Resistance
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Ajaccio , Corsica
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1943
Place of death Auschwitz