WWII Hero Marcel Levy's Family Album Finds Permanent Home at Yad Vashem
The family photo album of Marcel Levy, a French-Jewish resistance fighter, US-trained aerial gunner killed at 27, will be permanently deposited at Yad Vashem by his nephew.
An extraordinary story of heroism spanning nearly 80 years has come to light: Marcel Levy, a French-Jewish fighter who escaped German captivity, smuggled weapons for the Resistance, crossed the Pyrenees with the Gestapo on his trail, and trained as an aerial gunner in the United States, was killed at the age of 27 in battles to liberate southern France. At the end of the month, in a poignant closing of the circle, his family photo album will be deposited for eternal safekeeping at the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem. The album will be handed over by his nephew, Mark Levy, who made aliyah and currently lives in Jerusalem, accompanied by some 20 family members.
Marcel Levy's incredible journey, born in 1917, began with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, when he enlisted in the French army and served in a hot-air balloon observation team. After Europe was occupied by the Nazis, Levy fell into German captivity. He attempted to escape twice without success, but on his third try, he managed to break out of the prisoner-of-war camp in Marckolsheim, in the Alsace region, along with five of his comrades. After obtaining civilian clothes, he returned to his parents' home in Bergerac in November 1940.
Resistance and Escaping the Gestapo
Despite the dangers awaiting him, Levy did not go into hiding and decided to continue fighting. He joined the French Resistance, and in the dead of night, he used his father's truck to transport weapons that the French army had hidden in the ground. Two years later, when the Gestapo began tracking his footsteps, Levy was forced to flee France and crossed the Pyrenees on foot toward Spain. Upon reaching the border, he was arrested and imprisoned in Barcelona, but was released thanks to the intervention of the Canadian consulate, owing to his French-Canadian citizenship.
From Spain, Levy continued through Portugal to Algeria, where he joined the forces of the Free French Army. In 1943, he crossed another continent and was sent to Colorado in the United States, where he underwent advanced military training as an aerial gunner. Rare photographs from those days in the US, documenting him a year before his death, are a central part of the album preserved by the family. In May 1944, Levy returned to Algeria and participated in operational missions over North Africa and Europe. On August 15, 1944, he took off from the Oran-Mers-el-Kebir base on a crucial mission: to assist in the landing of Allied forces in Provence in southern France. During the mission, the plane crashed, and all eight crew members perished in the fire. Marcel Levy was 27 years old at his death.
Preserving the Legacy in Jerusalem
Following the end of the war, his remains were brought for burial in Sierck-les-Bains in France by his brother (Mark's father), and a monument was erected in his memory in a park bearing his name in Kuntzig, Germany. Now, the album that accompanied the family for eighty years will find a permanent home in Jerusalem.
"Marcel Levy's inspiring journey testifies to Jewish determination during the Holocaust. Depositing the photo album that his family preserved for more than eighty years allows us to also know the person behind the fighter, whose life was cut short at age 27. Here, at Yad Vashem, we ensure that his story will be preserved and told to future generations." — Orit Neumann, director of the 'Gathering the Fragments' project at Yad Vashem.
