I wanted to share with you a translation of the last letter from Missak Manouchian to his lover, both of them were Armenian resistants in France during WW2.

The letter that he wrote to Mélinée, his beloved companion, on the eve of his execution, February 21, 1944, is both deeply moving and unshakably resolute. He penned it only hours before his death at Mont-Valérien. Theirs was a shared fate: childhoods shattered by the Armenian genocide, the long road of exile to France, and a common devotion within the Communist Party. Then came the call of the Resistance.

On February 21, 2024, Missak Manouchian entered the Panthéon, not alone, but alongside Mélinée and the other members of his group who fell on that same tragic day, February 21, 1944. Though never bound by marriage in life, Missak and Mélinée Manouchian will now rest together for eternity. Until now, they lay side by side in the cemetery of Ivry-sur-Seine, in the Val-de-Marne, two souls finally brought to the nation’s highest honor, united at last in the silence of stone and memory.

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21, 1944, Fresnes

My dear Mélinée, my beloved little orphan.

In a few hours, I will no longer be of this world. We are to be shot this afternoon at three o’clock. This comes upon me like an accident in my life, I cannot believe it, and yet I know I shall never see you again.

What can I write to you? Everything is confused within me, and yet everything is perfectly clear.

I enlisted in the army of Liberation as a volunteer soldier, and I am dying within two fingers’ reach of victory and of our goal. Happiness to those who will survive us and taste the sweetness of the freedom and peace of tomorrow. I am certain that the French people and all who fight for liberty will know how to honor our memory with dignity. At the hour of my death, I declare that I bear no hatred toward the German people nor toward anyone at all, each will receive what they deserve, be it punishment or reward. The German people and all other peoples will live in peace and brotherhood after this war, which will not last much longer. Happiness to all!

My deepest regret is not having made you happy. I would have so dearly loved to have a child with you, as you always wished. I beg you, then, after the war, to marry, without fail, and to have a child in my honor, to fulfill my last will. Marry someone who can make you happy.

All my possessions and all my affairs, I leave them to you and to your sister, and to my nephews.

After the war, you will be able to claim your right to a war pension as my wife, for I die as a regular soldier of the French army of Liberation.

With the help of my friends who will wish to honor me, you will have my poems and writings published, they are worth reading. You will carry my memories, if possible, to my parents in Armenia. I am about to die with twenty-three comrades, with the courage and serenity of a man whose conscience is entirely at peace, because I personally have done no harm to anyone; and if I have, I have done so without hatred.

Today, the sun is shining. It is while looking toward the sun and the beautiful nature that I have loved so much that I will bid farewell to life and to all of you, my dearest wife and my dear friends. I forgive all those who have done me wrong or who wished to do me wrong, except for the one who betrayed us to save his own skin, and those who sold us out. I kiss you very, very tightly, as well as your sister and all the friends who know me from near or far, I hold all of you to my heart.

Farewell. Your friend, your comrade, your husband.

Manouchian Michel¹

P.S.: I have fifteen thousand francs in the suitcase at the Rue de Plaisance. If you can get them, pay my debts and give the rest to Armène. M.M.

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Original text from Missak Manouchian (1909-1944)

Translation from Arthur Bonhoure–Tolfo 

Source:

Dernière Lettre de Missak Manouchian

1. It’s the French version of his name ↩︎