Samuel Marcel Lévy 1902 - 1945

Born 11.6.1902 in Périgueux
Died 4.4.1945 in Mauthausen

Biography

Samuel Lévy and his wife Yvonne, née Meyer, married on 28 January 1927 in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and had two sons: Alain, born on 7 May 1928, and Bertrand, born on 15 November 1930. During the war the family lived in the rue Gambetta in Brive-la-Gaillarde (department of Corrèze).

A travelling salesman by profession, Lévy joined the Armée Secrète (Secret Army). His comrades knew him by the alias ‘Léon’. At the start of 1943, the partisan commander in Region R5, Colonel Gontran Rozer (alias ‘Pierrette’), appointed him quarter master general responsible for that region’s secret provisioning.

On 26 April 1944 Samuel Lévy, acting under the code-name ‘Lassalle’, was arrested together with his wife outside the main post office in Limoges (Haute-Vienne) as they were carrying out a secret mission for the Résistance. Several agents from Region R5 fell into the Germans’ hands around this time. Having been locked up at first in a prison in the city of Limoges, they were transferred to Drancy on 10 May 1944. Their Jewish descent had been discovered. In preparation for their racist deportation from France, Samuel Lévy was assigned the number 21443 and Yvonne the number 21444. On 20 May 1940 they were both put on one of the transports at Bobigny station heading for the ‘final solution’ in Auschwitz. Samuel Lévy survived the selection. In January 1945, with the Red Army rapidly approaching the camp, he was evacuated to Sachsenhausen, where he was assigned prisoner number 129670 on 29 January 1945. Yvonne, however, remained in Auschwitz and was liberated by the Soviet troops. She was repatriated to France on 12 May 1945.

On 13 February 1945 Samuel Lévy was sent on another evacuation transport, this time towards Austria. In Mauthausen he survived the massacre when the transport arrived, which included many prisoners who were sick and unable to work, and was registered as a French Jew on the day after his arrival under prisoner number 131390. On 17 February 1945 he was sent to ‘quarantine’ and on 2 March 1945 to the ‘infirmary’. One month later, on 4 April 1945, he died in the infirmary camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Samuel Lévy was honoured with the Résistance Medal (gazette dated 19 October 1945). On 4 November 1960 he was awarded the distinction Mort pour la France (Died for France) and the title déporté résistant (deported resistance fighter).

Adeline Lee

 

Translation into English: Joanna White

 

Sources

Service historique de la Défense, file MED 21 P 478190, File on the political deportee Yvonne Lévy, 21 P 563930, MA 18/4, 12/4, Arrivals book of the Mauthausen camp, 26 P 1120 (Kanthack Report).

Archives de l’Amicale de Mauthausen, pochette 451/3: Records by Juan de Diego (clerk in the Political Section) about the transport from Sachsenhausen.

 

Archives Nationales, F/9/5577, Questioning of De Dionne by Chalufour (Special Commissioner of the Centre for Research of Enemy War Crimes in Paris) on 11 August 1945.

Location In room