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Henri Krasucki (2 September 1924,
Wołomin Wołomin is the main town of Wołomin County situated in the Masovian Voivodship. Wołomin is situated approximately east of Warsaw, the capital of Poland, near the railway to Białystok. It has approximately 36,000 inhabitants and covers an a ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
– 24 January 2003, France) was a French trade-unionist, former secretary general of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) from 1982 to 1992.


Early life

Henri Krasucki's father, Izaak, a worker and activist, emigrated from Poland with his wife, a textile worker and communist activist, in 1926. During the
German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 ...
, his father was arrested on charges of
sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...
on 20 January 1943 and interned at
Drancy internment camp Drancy internment camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps during the German occupation of France during World War II. Originally conceived and built as a modernist urban commu ...
, before being deported on 13 February to Birkenau concentration camp where he was gassed at his arrival. During his youth, Henri Krasucki involved himself in
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...
movements, before entering the
Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...
factory where he began activism as a trade-unionist. Under the
Vichy regime Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its te ...
, he took part to the
FTP-MOI The Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d'œuvre immigrée (FTP-MOI) were a sub-group of the ''Francs-tireurs et partisans'' (FTP) organization, a component of the French Resistance. A wing composed mostly of foreigners, the MOI maintained an arm ...
Communist resistance movement composed of immigrants under the pseudonym ''Mésange'' (Bluetit). His brother was killed during an attack against a formation of the Wehrmacht. On 23 March 1943, Henri was arrested by the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organis ...
who also detained his mother and other resistants. Tortured in the
Fresnes prison Fresnes Prison ('' French Centre pénitentiaire de Fresnes'') is the second largest prison in France, located in the town of Fresnes, Val-de-Marne, south of Paris. It comprises a large men's prison (''maison d'arrêt'') of about 1200 cells, a smal ...
, where he was detained for six months, Henri Krasucki didn't break under interrogation and kept silent. On 23 June 1943 he was deported from
Drancy Drancy () is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris in the Seine-Saint-Denis department in northern France. It is located 10.8 km (6.7 mi) from the center of Paris. History Toponymy The name Drancy comes from Medieval Lati ...
to Jawischowitz, a sub-camp of
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It co ...
, and then to
Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally ' beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or s ...
. Out of 1,002 Jews, including 160 children under the age of 18, deported from Drancy in the same train as him (n°55), only 86 survived.Source : ''Le calendrier de la persécution des Juifs en France'' by
Serge Klarsfeld Serge Klarsfeld (born 17 September 1935) is a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust in order to establish the record and to enable the prosecution of war criminals. Since the 1960s, he has made notab ...
On 28 April 1945, Henri Krasucki returned to France, "just in time to demonstrate for the 1st of May," as he said humorously.


Post-war

After the Liberation, he became a leader of the
French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Uni ...
(PCF) although his main interest remained trade-unionism. In 1949, he was secretary of the departmental union of the CGT in the
Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributaries ...
, then entered in 1953 the PCF's federal bureau in the Seine. In 1956, he entered the central committee of the PCF, and then in 1961, the confederal bureau of the CGT, before becoming the director of the union's mouthpiece, ''La Vie ouvrière''. In 1964, he became a member of the political bureau of the PCF, and was for a time one of the candidates of the CGT's leadership in 1967. However, Georges Séguy was ultimately preferred to him, and Krasucki succeeded to him in 1982, during the 41st Congress of the CGT. He kept his functions of secretary general of the CGT until 1992, when he was succeeded by Louis Viannet. During these ten years, the membership of the CGT decreased by half, to approximatively 700,000 members. At the beginning of his mandate, Krasucki placed himself as main interlocutor with the then Socialist power, until the resignation of the Communist ministers in 1984, when
Laurent Fabius Laurent Fabius (; born 20 August 1946) is a French politician serving as President of the Constitutional Council since 8 March 2016. A member of the Socialist Party, he previously served as Prime Minister of France from 17 July 1984 to 20 Mar ...
succeeded to
Pierre Mauroy Pierre Mauroy (; 5 July 1928 – 7 June 2013) was a French Socialist politician who was Prime Minister of France from 1981 to 1984 under President François Mitterrand. Mauroy also served as Mayor of Lille from 1973 to 2001. At the time of his d ...
as
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is n ...
. Until the beginning of the 1980s, Krasucki defended some of the most rigid orientations of the PCF, leading him to somehow oppose himself to Georges Séguy, who was attempting, since 1978, to preserve the CGT from the consequences of the rupture of the Left-wings' Union, which had taken place in October 1977. In 1986, Krasucki was elected as vice-president of the
World Federation of Trade Unions The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is an international federation of trade unions established in 1945. Founded in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the organization built on the pre-war legacy of the International Federation of ...
(''Fédération syndicale mondiale'', FSM). Although the beginning of his leadership of the CGT witnessed a radicalization of the union, he undertook a progressive evolution towards more "negotiation" with the government at the end of his mandate and took his distances with the PCF. Thus, he condemned the Tiananmen repression in 1989. In the 1980s, the French TV comedy sketch show '' Cocoricocoboy'' would include '' Le Bébête Show'', puppets satirising leading politicians and personalities. Among them was a puppet with huge
crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...
claws, representing Krasucki (as in "Krab-sucki"). France is renowned for its strikes in which almost all the workforce put down tools. On one occasion a protest march was held by consumers protesting ''against'' the strikes. Among their slogans was "''Krasucki en Russie''", a call for Krasucki to be exiled to
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...
, then part of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
. Krasucki remained a member of the PCF's political bureau until 1996. He is buried at the
Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figur ...
, near the
Communards' Wall The Communards’ Wall (french: Mur des Fédérés) at the Père Lachaise cemetery is where, on May 28, 1871, during "Bloody Week", the final fighting of the Paris Commune, one-hundred and forty-seven ''fédérés'' or Commune soldiers, captured b ...
where one-hundred and forty-seven
Communards The Communards () were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. After the suppression of the Commune by the French Army in May 1871, 43,000 Communards ...
were executed in 1871. His memory was saluted both by
Marie-George Buffet Marie-George Buffet (née Kosellek; born 7 May 1949) is a French politician. She was the head of the French Communist Party (PCF) from 2001 to 2010. She joined the Party in 1969, and she served in the government as Minister of Youth Affairs an ...
, the national secretary of the PCF, and by then
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, , ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988, as well as May ...
.


Legacy

A roundabout in the
20th arrondissement of Paris The 20th arrondissement of Paris (known in French as the ''XXe arrondissement de Paris'' or simply as "''le vingtième''") is the last of the consecutively numbered arrondissements of the capital city of France. Also known as Ménilmontant () a ...
was given the name ''Place Henri Krasucki'' in his honor on 23 June 2005. It i
located at the intersection of
Rue des Couronnes, Rue de la Mare, Rue Des Envierges and Rue des Cascades near Belleville. For a long time Krasucki lived just off the roundabout at 107 Rue des Couronnes. He is portrayed by actor Adrien Jolivet in the 2009 French film '' The Army of Crime'' directed by
Robert Guédiguian Robert Jules Guédiguian (born 3 December 1953) is a French film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. Most of his films star Ariane Ascaride and Jean-Pierre Darroussin. Life and career Guédiguian is the son of a German mother and an Armen ...
.


Quotes

*"There is no more violent means of coercion used by employers against employees than
unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for Work (human activity), w ...
" (''« Il n’y a pas de moyen de coercition plus violent des employeurs contre les employés que le chômage. »'' — quoted by Stéphane Beaud & Michel Pialoux in ''
Le Monde diplomatique ''Le Monde diplomatique'' (meaning "The Diplomatic World" in French) is a French monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. The publication is owned by Le Monde diplomatique SA, a subsidiary com ...
''
November 2001, page 2
)


References


Bibliography

* ''Syndicats et lutte des classes'', Éditions sociales, * ''Syndicats et socialisme'', Éditions sociales (1972) * ''Syndicats et unité'', Éditions sociales (1980). * ''Un syndicat moderne? Oui- !'', éditions Messidor (1987) * ''Henri Krasucki (en souvenirs)'' by Pierre Tartakowski, éditions Aden (2003) * ''La CGT. Audience et organisation'' by Dominique Andolfatto & Dominique Labbé, éditions La Découverte, (1997)


External links


Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krasucki, Henri 1924 births 2003 deaths People from Wołomin 20th-century Polish Jews Jewish socialists French Communist Party members French trade union leaders Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Members of the General Confederation of Labour (France) Members of the Francs-tireurs et partisans Polish emigrants to France Holocaust survivors Yiddish-speaking people