Robert Desnos, photographed by R. Gendre a few days before his arrest by the Gestapo; circa 1943-1944. Robert Desnos (1900-1945), was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day. In 1919, he met Andr矇 Breton and the Paris Dada (surrealists) group. Desnos became a member and developed a particular talent for automatic writing, which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content. His career in radio began in 1932 with a show dedicated to Fantomas. During that time, he became friends with Picasso, Hemingway, Artaud and John Dos Passos; published many critical reviews on jazz and cinema and became increasingly involved in politics. During World War II, Desnos was an active member of the French R矇sistance network R矇seau AGIR (espionage group that provided human intelligence on V-1 flying bomb facilities) and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944. He was deported to the Nazi German concentration camps of Auschwitz, then Buchenwald and finally to Terez穩n in occupied Czechoslovakia in 1945. He died in 1945 from typhoid, only weeks after the camp's liberation. He wrote poems during his imprisonment which were accidentally destroyed following his death.