Born in Henridorff (Moselle) on the eighth of January 1921, to a peasant mother and a socialist working class father, Freund was the eldest of six siblings.
His brother Antoine, conscripted "malgré-nous" into the Wehrmacht, was injured in the battle of Orel in Russia and then deserted,[REF] which should have caused the deportation of his family who were aiding the resistance in Lorraine [REF].