The fighter the Gestapo couldn't stop: The 80-year-old secret revealed in Jerusalem

The heroic story of Marcel Levy, a Jewish-French fighter who escaped German captivity, smuggled weapons to the Resistance, crossed the Pyrenees, and trained as an aerial gunner in the US, has been revealed after 80 years. His photo album will be deposited for eternal preservation at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem at the end of the month.

An extraordinary story of heroism revealed after some 80 years: Marcel Levy, a Jewish-French fighter born in 1917, enlisted in the French army at the outbreak of World War II. After being captured by the Germans, he escaped on his third attempt from a prisoner-of-war camp in Alsace, joined the Resistance, and smuggled weapons in his father's truck. When the Gestapo tracked him down, he crossed the Pyrenees mountains on foot to Spain, was imprisoned in Barcelona, and released thanks to the Canadian consulate. From there he continued to Algeria and the US, where he trained as an aerial gunner in Colorado. In May 1944 he returned to Algeria, and on August 15, 1944, his plane crashed during a mission supporting the Allied landings in Provence; all eight crew members perished. Levy was 27 at his death. The family photo album, preserved for 80 years, will be deposited for eternal preservation at the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem by his nephew Marc Levy, who immigrated to Israel and lives in Jerusalem, accompanied by about 20 family members. Orit Neumann, director of the "Gathering the Fragments" project at Yad Vashem, said the journey testifies to Jewish determination during the Holocaust and that the album allows us to know the person behind the fighter.