|
Pilgrimage to "the Mountain" (or talk in Paris)
"Come in!" - greeting to the first Jewish refugee who came knocking and to all who followed
|
During the war, in these Protestant highlands of south-central France perhaps 5000 people were saved - Spanish republicans, opponents to the French puppet regime and especially, Jews.
|
 |
Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Memorial honors individuals who helped Jews. For this out-of-the-way region, it pays tribute to 47 individuals and, in a remarkable collective award, to the population as a whole.
|
•We take the TGV (Very Rapid Train) from Paris to Valence, where we rent a vehicle and drive to Le-Chambon-sur-Lignon, the highlands' main town (village then). |
- A winding, picturesque road takes us up the mountain, and makes feel the region's isolation...
|
|
 - A plateau far from centers of authority
|
At the end of the Sun King's reign in the 17th century, soldiers billetted in Protestant homes were allowed to do anything except murder to enforce conversion. Recalcitrants left the kingdom - or, in inaccessible places like these mountains, dug in their heels.
|
|
A tradition of help to the persecuted endured. During the Revolution, royalist Catholic priests found refuge here. Later came miners' children, Spanish republicans...
|
|
|
|
- Staunch population, determined pastors
|
|
 - Edouard Theis, 1980
"God will provide"
|
|
 - André Trocmé, 1940
The Bible is now at Washington's U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
|
|
t the end of the 1930's appeared two exceptional pastors, relegated to this sparsely-populated region for their pacifism. Their church was at Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (pop. 2500 at most). André Trocmé was explosive, charismatic and exceptionally eloquent, Edouard Theis rock-like in his steadiness.
|
|
They and the dozen other pastors of the region galvanized resistance, often passive, to the occupiers and succor to their victims. Humanitarian organizations (Swiss, French Protestant, pacifist, Jewish and American, including the Friends and the YMCA) helped, some when solicited, some spontaneously. Refugees paid what they could. Almost everyone participated and Jews especially were taken in.
|
Trocmé invited his young cousin, Daniel Trocmé, to head a shelter for children whose parents had been deported or were being held in French camps. |
|
|
|
- Daniel's letters to his parents...
|
|
...tell of repairing shoes for the children with old tires, of searching for second-hand clothes in neighboring towns, of a fire that destroyed them. He felt that the children and he were beginning to feel like a family...
Though aware of the danger, he accepted the leadership of a second shelter, one for young men.
|
|
|
|
- At dawn on June 29, 1943 the Gestapo encircled that shelter...
|
|
 - Young men at the "Maison des Roches", their shelter, a few weeks before the raid
Daniel, who had spent the night at the children's home, was warned of the Germans' presence and could have vanished into the forest. Yet he let himself be arrested and taken to the youths: He felt responsable for them and hoped to protect them....
Almost all were deported, as was Daniel. He died in April 1944, in a gas chamber at Maidenek, an extermination camp in Poland. |
|
|
|
- We reconstitute these tragic events...
through Daniel's letters, excerpts from Pierre Sauvage's prize-winning documentary "Weapons of the spirit", recent research and oral tradition. As well, we allude to the way in which the media have presented this story.
- ...and visit a voluntarily modest exhibit
which is open by appointment. We hear about the effervescent intellectual environment, due to the recently-founded high school, to the many pastors, to the presence of highly-educated refugees and to political confrontation: resistance by arms or with "weapons of the spirit"? But resistance itself was taken for granted. |
For the countryside, please CLICK
* * *
Street / Albert Normand, resident; Edouard Theis / kindly supplied by his daughter, Louise Theis ; André Trocmé / frequently-published photo ; Daniel Trocmé / "Weapons of the Spirit" ; station / Gis Chambard, resident; children's shelter / Henry Aubin; youths / kindly supplied by Albert Normand
We thank Nelly Trocmé Hewett, Gérard Bollon, Annik Flaud, Micheline Doulière, Pierre Sauvage, Louise Theis and Robert Trocmé for their information.
Daniel Trocmé is C. Aubin's uncle.
•Top of page
|
|
