Marxist philosopher and French Resistance figure Valentin Feldman was shot on this date in 1942, but he went out with an epic own of his firing squad: “Imbéciles, c’est pour vous que je meurs!” (“Imbeciles, it is for you that I die!”).
A Jewish emigre from the Soviet Union, Feldman (English Wikipedia entry | the more detailed French) matriculated at Paris’s prestigious Lycee Henri-IV alongside such luminaries as Simone Weil and Maurice Schumann. He mobilized during the “Phoney War” run-up ahead of Germany’s blitz on France, publishing a short Journal de guerre about his experiences.
He was excluded from his teaching work by anti-Semitic laws, leaving him plenty of time for anti-occupation subversion until he was caught sabotaging a factory.
Feldman’s last words were so unsurpassably revolutionary and modern and French that Jean-Luc Godard built a 1988 short film, Le Dernier Mot, around them.
On this day..
- 2019: Ali Hakim al-Arab and Ahmad al-Mullali, Bahrain opposition
- 1681: Donald Cargill, Covenanter rebel
- 1820: Stephen Sullivan, for murdering the Colleen Bawn
- 1734: Pierce Tobin and Walter Kelly, "a Spectacle both to Men and Angels!"
- 1676: Matoonas, a Nipmuc shot on Boston Common
- 1973: Mimi Wong Weng Siu, jealous hostess
- 1781: Francois Henri de la Motte, French spy
- 1916: Captain Charles Fryatt, illegal combatant
- 1990: Gideon Orkar, for a Nigerian coup
- Special: One Thousand and One Nights for One Thousand and One Deaths
- 1582: Philippe Strozzi, corsair
- 1915: 167 Haitian political prisoners
- 1794: The last cart of the Terror, not including the Marquis de Sade