Crupnic Bunțea

About

He was born in the city of Soroca in the same region, Bessarabia Governorate (Russian Empire). In 1928, he enrolled in the Department of Economic Sciences at the University of Ghent, and in 1929, in Brussels, he joined the youth wing of the Belgian Communist Party. In 1935, he married Oskar Smesman (1888-1941), a dockworker and member of the Communist Party, born in the Belgian city of Merelbeke, thus acquiring Belgian citizenship the following year. At the beginning of World War II, he was in the leadership of the Communist Party of Belgium. He was involved in intelligence activities as part of the "Efremov" group and, together with Elizabeth Sneyers, provided shelter to intelligence agents in the Brussels area. He maintained contact with members of the anti-German resistance, and in June 1942, he was assigned the task of providing information to Willy Kruyt. Kruyt met twice with Crupnic, who was known by the nickname Sino. In 1943, he led the Partisans Armés ("Belgian Partisans" – the military wing of the Communist Party), but was arrested by the Gestapo and interned in Mechelen, from there to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, then to Auschwitz. After his release, he returned to Belgium, where he remarried and continued his cooperation within the country's Communist Party. In 1946, he worked for the newspaper Clarte in Brussels. From 1960, he lived in Liège, where he worked as a social worker, and later in the social security department.