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He was a liaison agent, carrying secret messages and letters to surrounding farms in central France.
“With his schoolbag on his back did not raise suspicion»Remembers his nephew.
People surprised with his “incredible” memory and so they trusted him to deliver the messages he hides under his shirt.
Marcel pinte He was 6 years old and the youngest hero of the French resistance to the Nazi occupation during World War II.
After many years, finally his name was inscribed on a monument in France with those others who fought Nazi Germany.
The messenger tragically died in August 1944, when one of the guerrilla weapons accidentally detonated.
But his memory was honored on Armistice Day, November 11, at a ceremony in Aixe-sur-Vienne, near the city of Limoges, in central France.
His incredible memory
Marcel’s father, Eugne Pinte (aka Athos) was the leader of a Resistance network from the isolated family farm in La Gaubertie, a village in the Aixe-sur-Vienne region.
One of his grandsons, Marc Pinte, explains to the AFP agency that Marcel “understood everything at once”, so he quickly gained the confidence of the guerrillas.
He was eager to play a role in the fight against Nazi Germany and became an agent known as “Quinquin“, or” the little boy “.
The boy was happy to spend time in the forest with members of the Resistance, known as the maquisards, where you learn about their clandestine methods.
Eugne Pinte, with his wife Paule and their five children, they organized secret meetings on farms and even hid a British parachutist in the attic of their house.
Another relative of Marcel, Alexandre Brmaud, spent years researching the boy’s history because official records focused on resistance guerrillas and sabotage operations, rather than many caregivers, often women and children, who also risked to defeat the Nazi occupation.
“My grandmother described him as an extremely happy, intelligent and bright brother, full of mischief,” Brmaud told the BBC.
He says the boy laughed when the underground radio operator, who worked in the family dining room, pretended to swallow the cyanide pill he was carrying.
The owner was “a hidden place and very difficult to access,” and the guerrillas found it “convenient and low-key,” Brmaud told AFP.
Marcel’s role was finally recognized by the French state. In 1950 he was posthumously awarded the rank of Resistance sergeant.
Then, in 2013, the National Office for Ex-combatants and War Victims issued him an official posthumous card of “volunteer resistance fighters”.
His tragic death
When the Allies entered France from Normandy in the summer of 1944, the Resistance intensified its operations against the Germans.
One night, Marcel went with a group of maquis to a parachute for ammunition and other supplies. They had received a code message via the BBC: “The forget-me-not is my favorite flower.”
The meeting was at La Gaubertie and suddenly, while they were waiting, one of the Sten guns for men was triggered by accident, killing Marcel with several shots.
His death certificate was forged to keep the existence of the unit a secret.
Brmaud says the British paid tribute to the boy using a black parachute during your next drop in supply.
It was a note found by Brmaud in the military archives of Vincennes which told the story of Marcel, written by an officer of the French army.
The war exploits of Marcel’s father, Eugne, were already well known. He died in 1951, at the age of 49.
The child was buried in August 1944, a few hours before the liberation of Limoges, “in the presence of many battalions; the coffin was covered with the tricolor”, declared Marc Pinte.
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