Monaco home and held in the Drancy deportation camp outside the French capital before being transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was later killed. Blum's colleague Raoul Gunsbourg, the director of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, helped by the French Resistance, escaped arrest and fled to Switzerland. In August 1944, the Germans executed René Borghini, Joseph-Henri Lajoux and Esther Poggio, who were Resistance leaders. Rainier III, who ruled until 2005, succeeded to the throne following the death of his grandfather, Prince Louis II, in 1949. On 19 April 1956, Prince Rainier married the American actress Grace Kelly; the event was
Rainier III, Prince of Monaco philatelic collectors club Club de Monte-Carlo de l'Élite de la Philatélie was established under his patronage in 1999; the club has its headquarters at the museum, with its membership restricted to institutions and one hundred prestigious collectors. Rainier organized exhibitions of rare and exceptional postage stamps and letters with the club's members. Throughout his reign, Rainier surveyed all the process of creation of Monaco stamps. He liked stamps printed in intaglio and the art of engravers Henri Cheffer and Czesław Słania. Rainier's car collection was opened to the public as the Monaco Top Cars Collection in Fontvieille. Prince Rainier smoked