Blue poster for the 40th anniversary of Po'alei Zion

Moishe (now Moszek) Szulim Brycman is the son of Rabbi Abraham Leib and Hanna Feigele Schneiderman Brycman. Moishe was born on January 16, 1909, in Kirov, Poland, near Lublin. His father taught Yiddish and Talmud, and his mother sold groceries and kitchen utensils. Moishe had two sisters, Minda and Malka, and two brothers, Haim (now Edelhertz) and Simcha. In 1923, Moishe moved to Warsaw, Poland, where he was active in Zionist youth movements and was an acquaintance of Emanuel Ringelblum. In 1931 he immigrated to Paris, France, and the following year he married Marie Edelszein. Moishe continued his involvement in Zionist youth movements and belonged to Poale Zion.

In June 1940, following the German invasion of France, Moishe fled to Poitiers, France, by foot from Paris traveling from Orleans to Bayonne and passing through Bordeaux. In Pau, France, he became active in the Zionist resistance. Working under the codename “Bremond,” he helped manufacture false papers, bring children and adults to safety in Spain, and establish contact with other resistance groups in the Pyrenees. Though Moishe had working papers and was relatively safe in Pau, in April 1943 the resistance asked him to move to Grenoble, France. From May 1, 1943, to September 1944, he stayed in Grenoble where he served as treasurer of the Committee for the Defense of the Jews and helped bring children safely over the border into Switzerland. He also published an underground newspaper and fliers appealing to Frenchmen to resist deportation orders.

Moishe was liberated by American forces in Grenoble in August 1944 at the age of 35. After liberation he returned to Paris and worked with Jewish children in a home in Les Andelys, France. Though both Moishe and his wife, Marie, survived the Holocaust, both of his parents as well as three of his siblings perished. Only his brother, Haim, survived.