Croci, Lucien
Item
Name
Croci, Lucien
Given name
Lucien
Family name
Croci
One-line bio
French YCW leader sent to Germany under the Compulsory Work Service system, where he continued to oragnise young workers, leading to his arrest and deportation to a series of concentration camps until his death on 27 March 1945. He was beatified on 13 December 2025.
Biography
Born on 15 November, 1919 in Aubervilliers (Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis), died in deportation on 27 March, 1945 in Barth (Germany) [civil status mistakenly mentions Ravensbrück as place of death]; plate-making and electroplating worker; president of the JOC federation of Paris-East (1939), JOC permanent staff member in the Paris region (1942); conscripted for the STO in Berlin (1943), clandestine leader of Catholic action.
The son of a stonemason, Lucien Croci and his brother Jacques (born in 1920) never knew their father and were raised by their mother, a cardboard box maker, and their maternal grandmother, a laundress and ironer, both of whom were irregularly practicing Catholics. They lived for a few months in Saint-Benoît-du-Sault (Indre), then in Argenton-sur-Creuse (Indre). There, Lucien Croci and his brother were involved with the Cœurs Vaillants (Valiant Hearts) and then the Scouts, but quickly left the latter, which did not align with their aspirations. The family then settled in Vincennes (Seine, now Val-de-Marne), first on Rue Diderot and then at 8 Rue Crébillon, where Lucien Croci attended school until the end of elementary school. He obtained the primary school certificate and then carried out a pre-apprenticeship (October 1932-September 1933) and an apprenticeship (October 1933-1936) as a plate-maker-electroplater at the Vaugirard printing works.
At the age of sixteen, he discovered the Young Christian Workers (JOC) and in 1936, with his brother, launched a JOC section in Vincennes. After a year in existence, this section already had 75 young members and was represented at the JOC's 10th anniversary congress, which brought together 60,000 JOC members in Paris on 17 and 18 July, 1937. Having become president of the Paris-East federation in September 1939, Lucien Croci was mobilized shortly afterwards and, after the defeat, continued his military service in the youth work camps.
Returning to Vincennes on 10 February, 1941, he resumed his federal activities and, after a period of unemployment, was hired at the Kodak-Pathé factory in Vincennes, where he worked rotating shifts as a switchboard operator. In April 1942, Pierre Lacalmette , the JOC's full-time representative for the Seine, Seine-et-Oise, and Seine-et-Marne departments, asked him to leave his job to dedicate himself entirely to the movement, whose secretariat in the occupied zone had been gradually re-established since the summer of 1940. Lucien Croci thus became a national leader of the JOC on 1 May, 1942, before being drafted in June 1943 into the STO (Service du Travail Obligatoire – Compulsory Work Service). Due to his family situation, he had the option of not going to Germany, but decided to go anyway to share the lives of those who did not have that choice. This attitude was in line with what a part of the JOC movement was advocating at the time and corresponded, according to his brother's testimony, to the desire not to be a "shirker".
Assigned to the Schulze factory in Berlin, he contributed to the launch of a Catholic action movement, "Jeunesse qui réact" (Youth that Reacts), primarily composed of members of the Young Christian Workers (JOC) and Scouts. This movement of young French workers, which strove to carry out "mutual aid, defend the dignity of workers, and resist Nazism," experienced rapid growth, reaching nearly a thousand young people organized into 70 federations less than a year after its creation. In Berlin, the group numbered 500 people, and the decision was made, as a precautionary measure, to decentralize it. Several sectors were thus created, and the leadership of the southwest sector of the city was entrusted to Lucien Croci.
On 7 June, 1944, the German authorities discovered the existence of this organization, and the Gestapo made several arrests. Lucien Croci was arrested on 25 August, 1944, for Catholic activity, deported to the Sachsenhausen-Orianenburg concentration camp on 23 September, and then to the Karlshagen camp on the island of Üsedom (a satellite of Ravensbrück), at the mouth of the Oder River in the Baltic Sea, on 18 October, along with a convoy of 500 prisoners. Falling ill, he was transferred in February 1945, in a convoy of 350 disabled prisoners, to the Barth rest camp (prisoner number 10996). He died there of starvation and exhaustion on 27 March and was buried in a mass grave.
The son of a stonemason, Lucien Croci and his brother Jacques (born in 1920) never knew their father and were raised by their mother, a cardboard box maker, and their maternal grandmother, a laundress and ironer, both of whom were irregularly practicing Catholics. They lived for a few months in Saint-Benoît-du-Sault (Indre), then in Argenton-sur-Creuse (Indre). There, Lucien Croci and his brother were involved with the Cœurs Vaillants (Valiant Hearts) and then the Scouts, but quickly left the latter, which did not align with their aspirations. The family then settled in Vincennes (Seine, now Val-de-Marne), first on Rue Diderot and then at 8 Rue Crébillon, where Lucien Croci attended school until the end of elementary school. He obtained the primary school certificate and then carried out a pre-apprenticeship (October 1932-September 1933) and an apprenticeship (October 1933-1936) as a plate-maker-electroplater at the Vaugirard printing works.
At the age of sixteen, he discovered the Young Christian Workers (JOC) and in 1936, with his brother, launched a JOC section in Vincennes. After a year in existence, this section already had 75 young members and was represented at the JOC's 10th anniversary congress, which brought together 60,000 JOC members in Paris on 17 and 18 July, 1937. Having become president of the Paris-East federation in September 1939, Lucien Croci was mobilized shortly afterwards and, after the defeat, continued his military service in the youth work camps.
Returning to Vincennes on 10 February, 1941, he resumed his federal activities and, after a period of unemployment, was hired at the Kodak-Pathé factory in Vincennes, where he worked rotating shifts as a switchboard operator. In April 1942, Pierre Lacalmette , the JOC's full-time representative for the Seine, Seine-et-Oise, and Seine-et-Marne departments, asked him to leave his job to dedicate himself entirely to the movement, whose secretariat in the occupied zone had been gradually re-established since the summer of 1940. Lucien Croci thus became a national leader of the JOC on 1 May, 1942, before being drafted in June 1943 into the STO (Service du Travail Obligatoire – Compulsory Work Service). Due to his family situation, he had the option of not going to Germany, but decided to go anyway to share the lives of those who did not have that choice. This attitude was in line with what a part of the JOC movement was advocating at the time and corresponded, according to his brother's testimony, to the desire not to be a "shirker".
Assigned to the Schulze factory in Berlin, he contributed to the launch of a Catholic action movement, "Jeunesse qui réact" (Youth that Reacts), primarily composed of members of the Young Christian Workers (JOC) and Scouts. This movement of young French workers, which strove to carry out "mutual aid, defend the dignity of workers, and resist Nazism," experienced rapid growth, reaching nearly a thousand young people organized into 70 federations less than a year after its creation. In Berlin, the group numbered 500 people, and the decision was made, as a precautionary measure, to decentralize it. Several sectors were thus created, and the leadership of the southwest sector of the city was entrusted to Lucien Croci.
On 7 June, 1944, the German authorities discovered the existence of this organization, and the Gestapo made several arrests. Lucien Croci was arrested on 25 August, 1944, for Catholic activity, deported to the Sachsenhausen-Orianenburg concentration camp on 23 September, and then to the Karlshagen camp on the island of Üsedom (a satellite of Ravensbrück), at the mouth of the Oder River in the Baltic Sea, on 18 October, along with a convoy of 500 prisoners. Falling ill, he was transferred in February 1945, in a convoy of 350 disabled prisoners, to the Barth rest camp (prisoner number 10996). He died there of starvation and exhaustion on 27 March and was buried in a mass grave.
Country of origin
English
France
Geographic area
Seine, Seine Saint Denis
Birth date
November 15, 1919
Birth place
Aubervilliers
Death date
March 27, 1945
Death place
Barth
Movement
French JOC
Affiliation
French JOC