Raphaël Élizé

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Raphaël Élizé (born February 4, 1891 in Le Lamentin , Martinique , † February 9, 1945 in Weimar ) was the first dark-skinned mayor in France and a resistance fighter of the Resistance .

Life

place R. Élizé in front of the town hall of Sablé-sur-Sarthe

Élizé left Martinique with his parents at the age of eleven shortly after the eruption of the Montagne Pelée in 1902. In 1910 he began studying at the École nationale vétérinaire de Lyon , from which he graduated in July 1914 with a diploma. With the beginning of the First World War he was recruited as a veterinarian to the French colonial troops. He was awarded the Croix de guerre for his services .

In 1924 he became a member of the SFIO and was involved in local politics in Sablé-sur-Sarthe , where he was elected mayor in 1929.

After the occupation of France by the Wehrmacht , Élizé took part in the resistance struggle. In September 1943 he was denounced and arrested. He spent several months in Angers prison and in the Royallieu concentration camp . On January 19, 1944, he was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he died on February 9, 1945 after being seriously wounded in an Allied air raid on the Gustloff-Weimar satellite camp .

Honors

On October 16, 1945, the square in front of the town hall in Sablé-sur-Sarthe was named after him.

literature

  • Gert Schramm : Who is afraid of the black man? My life in Germany. Construction Publishing House: Berlin 2011
  • Raphaël Elizé (1891-1945). Premier maire de couleur de la France metropolitaine. Des Antilles au Maine: Itinéraire entre politique et art de vivre. Passé Simple, 1994, ISBN 2-9508468-0-7 . Réédition en 2010, Éditions du Petit Pavé, ISBN 978-2-84712-253-4 .
  • Charles Samuel: Un noir à Buchenwald. 2009

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Serge Bilé: Noirs dans les camps nazis. Éditions du Rocher: Monaco 2005, p. 93f
personal data
SURNAME Élizé, Raphaël
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French local politician, mayor and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Le Lamentin in Martinique
DATE OF DEATH February 9, 1945
Place of death Weimar