Mimosa.
★August 16, 1907, anarchist militant and nurse for the Durutti Column, Georgette Léontine Roberte Augustine Kokoczinske alias 'Mimosa' was born in Versailles, Paris.
At the age of 16, she began to frequent the bars and Cabarets of Montmartre, where she became interested not only in performance and poetry, but also in the ideas of anarchism. In the late 1920s, alongside organising meetings and rallies for anarchist causes, she qualified as a nurse.
She set up home with the anarchist Fernand Fortin and belonged to the “Éducation Sociale” group. Using the stage name Mimosa, she joined a theatre group that entertained libertarian meetings and festivals in France such as "La Revue Anarchiste".
On September 18, 1936, Mimosa enlisted in the International Group of the Durruti Column and was dispatched to the Aragon Front, where she and the German anarchists Augusta Marx and Madeleine Gierth took care of the infirmary and the kitchens.
She was killed on October 17, 1936 aged 27, at the Battle of Perdiguera near Zaragoza, Aragon, along with other nurses and dozens of foreign volunteers - including French activists Roger and Juiette Baudard, Yves Vitrac, Bernard Meller, Jean Delalain, Suzanne Girbe, Louis Recoulis, Rene Galissot, Jean Albertini, Jean Giralt, Raymond Berge and Henri Delaruelle. Following a gunfight in which all the anarchists (including Mimosa) took up arms, they were eventually captured by Franco's fascists when their ammunition ran out, then murdered and their unclothed bodies burned in a barn. Their memories will live on forever with love, whereas the anonymous, diseased creatures that killed them, are in the dustbin of history and the fight is not finished.
In May 1937, as a tribute to her, a French-speaking FAI group in the Gracia neighborhood of Barcelona, took the name Brigada Mimosa.
• Why we want to fight. This clip dedicated to Mimosa. Libertarias. 1996. Directed by: Vicente Aranda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXNoFZHJx30...
