Arthur London

Arthur London was born in 1915 in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, the son of a socialist activist. From his first years he participated actively in strikes and anti-fascist fights and was arrested for the first time in 1931. After the Spanish Civil War, he participated in the French Resistance where he was one of the three leaders of the MOI (Main d’Oeuvre Immigrée) which included the communist foreign immigrants in France). He was an active organizer of the campaigns of anti-nazi propaganda in the ranks of the German soldiers in France and other countries. Arrested in 1944, he was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp where he was one of the leaders of the resistance. After the war, he returned to Czechoslovakia where he became deputy minister of Foreign Affairs. He was arrested in 1951 as part of a series of mass arrests of Communists (many of them Spanish Civil War veterans) known as "the Slansky trial" (for the general secretary of the Czech Communist party and deputy Prime Minister Rudolf Slansky, the primary people accused). He was subsequently convicted, but then rehabilitated in February 1956. He died in France in 1986. He is the author of the book Spain, Spain and another based on his experiences during his trial, The Confession.

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