Justus Rosenberg, whose life as a living link to Holocaust history was hidden from his students at Bard College, died Oct. 30 at his home in Rhinebeck, NY. He was 100.

As a teenager in WWII, he served as a courier in the fabled rescue team of Varian Fry, an American journalist who launched a covert operation that provided safe passage to artists and intellectuals out of Vichy France. The mission aided luminaries like Hannah Arendt, Marcel Duchamp, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst and André Breton. Mr. Rosenberg then fought in the French Resistance, lobbing grenades at German tanks, and aided the U.S. Army as a reconnaissance scout, earning a Bronze Star.

For decades, Mr. Rosenberg kept the stories of his past to himself. When he was interviewed in 1998 by the Shoah Foundation, which Steven Spielberg had established to collect the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, he discussed his wartime exploits extensively for the first time.

At the age of 96, Mr. Rosenberg was decorated by the French government as a commander of the Legion of Honor for his service in WWII. Last year, he published a memoir, The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground.