GEORGE'S BLIND, A MEMBER OF THE FRENCH RESISTANCE, SMILING AT A GERMAN FIRING SQUAD 1944

 Georges Blind, a member of the French resistance, smiling at a German firing squad, 1944

a mock execution attempting to get the resistance fighter, Georges Blind, to talk. It didn’t work. Georges did not divulge any information. 

It’s interesting how they’ve placed him at the corner of the building rather than against the stereotypical flat wall. It must make ricochet injuries to the firing squad members much less likely.

Of course, this was a mock execution, but most likely they used the same site for real executions. 

Georges Blind was eventually forwarded to a concentration camp, where he was selected for termination on arrival, dying some time in late November 1944.

A mock execution is a stratagem in which a victim is deliberately but falsely made to feel that his execution or that of another person is imminent or is taking place. 

It may be staged for an audience or a subject who is made to believe that he is being led to his own execution.

This might involve blindfolding the subjects, making them recount last wishes, making them dig their own grave, holding an unloaded gun to their head and pulling the trigger, shooting near (but not at) 

the victim, or firing blanks. Mock execution is categorized as psychological torture.

There is a sense of fear-induced when a person is made to feel that they are about to be executed or witness someone being executed.

 Mock execution is considered psychological torture because there is no physical harm caused, but there is mental harm.

Psychological harm is caused because the victim’s suspense level increases while awaiting their death or someone else’s, which is considered torture. 

The psychological trauma begins to occur when the victim realizes that they are about to be executed.

The psychological trauma results in permanent damage equivalent to the aftermath of physical torture.

 The buildup of anxiety due to mock execution could influence the end result of the staged death.

Usually, the mock executions were done to intimidate and let people in occupied Europe not to mess with the Germans. 

The Germans thought the best way to fight resistance movements was to be utterly brutal in putting it down. If a village housed a few fighters, they would just take out the whole village.