Born in Byalistok, Poland, enrolled very young in the underground Communist Party, Adam Rayski arrived in Paris in 1932 and studied journalism at the Sorbonne. In 1934, he joined the Yiddish daily “Die Naye Presse”, before joining the editorial staff of the Communist daily L’Humanité.
Based in Paris during the Occupation, he was appointed political director of the Jewish section of the French Communist Party and became one of the leaders of the FTP-MOI, the immigrant section of the Communist armed resistance movement FTP against the Nazi Occupation of France.
In 1943 he participated in the founding of CRIF, whose first mission was to provide assistance to Jews by providing them with false papers or helping them to leave occupied France.
Awarded the Resistance Medal and the War Cross for his deeds in the resistance, after the war he returned to Poland where he was put in charge of the Communist press publications.
Returning to France in 1957, he broke with the Polish Communist Party and from then on dedicated himself to the history of Jewish resistance in France.
Right to the end of his life he continued to fight for human rights.
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