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France has paid tribute to a boy considered its youngest resistance hero of World War II, Marcel Pinte. He was only six years old when a friendly fire accidentally shot him.
In a special ceremony, the boy’s name was inscribed on the war memorial in Aixe-sur-Vienne, west of the central city of Limoges.
Marcel, known as Quinquin, is seen as a hero for carrying messages under his shirt to the leaders of the resistance against the Nazi occupation during World War II.
He died, aged just six, on August 19, 1944, when a large deployment of resistance fighters parachuted in ahead of an expected battle around Aixe as Allied forces began to liberate France.
They were heavily armed and Marcel was hit by several bullets when a Sten machine gun was accidentally fired.
“People who pass by this monument to the dead will notice his name and in particular his age,” said a relative, Marc Pinte.
“It is an honor. It sheds light on those who remained in the shadows but who fought for freedom.”
In 1950, Marcel was posthumously awarded the rank of Resistance sergeant.
And in 2013, he was posthumously awarded an official card for “volunteer Resistance fighters” from the National Office for Veterans and War Victims.
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