About M. Madhavan, the only Indian to ever be executed by the Nazis

• 28-year-old M. Madhavan is the only native-born Indian to be executed in a concentration camp during WWII by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.

• Madhavan was born in 1914 in Mahe, a former French Colony off the cost of Malabar,

• Madhavan was always actively involved in the local politics of Mahe and went on to join the Youth League in Mahe.

• In 1937, Madhavan enrolled in Sorbonne University in Paris, few years before Nazi Germany’s invasion and occupation of France. Madhavan joined the French Communist Party after being inspired by French’s spirit of resistance.

• Madhavan was captured along with 115 others and sent to a concentration camp.

• Madhavan had the choice of escaping from captivity be declaring that he’s Indian, but he refused to do so and told the Nazis that he was French.

• Madhavan was tied to a pole and shot dead on the orders of French Nazi leaders.

• Madhavan’s name is said to be inscribes at the Mémorial de la France Combattante at Fort Mont-Valérien in Suresnes, Paris