Born in 1913 into a working-class family in
Marseille, Fifi Turin worked in the spinning mills from the age of thirteen at the SA des Filatures et Tissages de Marseille, located at 21 boulevard des Vignes (now named Boulevard Fifi-Turin) in the Capelette district. She was the wife of fellow activist Laurent Turin. but despite that, Turin was active against the
German Occupation of France. Placed under house arrest in
Tarascon in November 1940 by the pro-German French government, the
Vichy regime, she managed to escape. Condemned to a life in hiding, she went to
Lyon, France, where she joined the
French Resistance as a liaison agent in the ranks of the
Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP). There she used the pseudonyms "Germaine," "Hélène" and "Denise." In June 1943, she was assigned to the radio service of the clandestine
French Communist Party. Fifi Turin's ashes were eventually returned to Marseille and were buried in the city's
Saint-Pierre cemetery. The event became a well-attended ceremony organized by the city's Communist Party and trade union authorities. A street in the tenth
arrondissement of Marseille, Boulevard Fifi-Turin, bears her name. A plaque in her memory was placed at the beginning of the boulevard and another on the house where she lived at 69, rue des Vignes (now rue Del-Bello). Her name also appears on the memorial to the Resistance fighters of the
Bouches-du-Rhône department in the military section of the Saint-Pierre cemetery in Marseille. == References ==