Joseph Boczov

Before the war, Boczov worked as a carpenter and lived in the 13th arrondissement of Paris.

From 24 September 1943, Boczov saw he was being followed by the Brigades Spéciales n° 2 of the Renseignements généraux, so went into hiding. He used various addresses in Paris: 85, rue de Turbigo; 1bis, rue Lanneau; and 9, rue Caillaux. On 21 October 1943, Boczov, Léon Goldberg and four other fighters left on a mission to stop a German convoy on the Paris – Troyes line at Grandpuits near Mormant. They successfully derailed the train that night, but failed to notice they were being followed. In a firefight, three resistance fighters were killed or taken prisoner, and the others got away but were identified. The noose was tightening.

Joseph Boczov was arrested on 27 November 1943. Accused of having carried out 20 attacks (which surpassed his successes), he was brought before the military tribunal in February 1944 in a show trial of the Manouchian Group. He was shot at the fort mont Valérien on 21 February 1944 with 21 other members of the group.

Migrating to Paris, Boczov arrived in the 1930s and became connected with the many other Hungarians there. After the Fall of France, when the first groups of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP) were formed, he became chief of the first detachment of FTP-Immigrés, composed of Hungaro-Romanians from the region. He organized the first grenade attack on the train station at Belleville, where large quantities of goods were stored in the depots.

Boczov was born into a Jewish Hungarian family in Felsobanya. In 1918, Transylvania became part of Romania. He studied science and math, and in college studied chemical engineering. As an young man, he joined the Romanian Communist Party.

Joseph Boczov or József Boczor, aka Ferenc Wolff (3 August 1905 – 21 February 1944) was a Romanian chemical engineer, Hungarian Jew, and volunteer fighter for the French liberation army FTP-MOI. In 1942 Boczov founded and led the 4th detachment, called the dérailleurs, as they specialized in derailing trains. A specialist in explosives, Boczov had participated in military operations during the Spanish Civil War. He was executed in 1944 by the Germans after a show trial in Paris of the Manouchian Group.