6.6. DETOUR: MEMORIES OF PERSECUTION AND WARTIME RESCUE OF JEWS

"COME IN, COME IN!" 

The Protestant welcome to the first Jewish refugee starts

Europe's most important rescue of Nazis' victims: Spanish Republicans, opponents of the French puppet government and especially, Jews.

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Protestants maintain themselves in isolated regions, such as these mountains of south-central France. The rural population of 5,000

is roughly the same number as the people saved.

Diaconesses de Reuilly

Dogs bark if strangers appear, which lets refugees hide should police raid.

The burg with which the rescue is associated: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (pop. 15,000 in 1940). The overwhelmingly Protestant population remembered its own persecution and welcomed the hunted, including Catholic priests during the Revolution. 

The Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem honors civilians who helped Jews. It honors 47 individuals in this out-of-the-way region and in a remarkable announcement, the population as a whole.
 

Another element, the engagement of the dozen pastors. Particularly eloquent: André Trocmé, pastor of Le Chambon.

• A descendant of the valley proprietor the last page mentions, he was sent to this obscure parish as punishment for his pacifism.

The Bible is in Washington's Holocaust Museum.

           "Weapons of the spirit,"

the first sermon of the Resistance 

On the Sunday after the signing of the Armistice, Trocmé preached resistance with "weapons of the spirit."

He, his wife Magda (who said, "Come in, come in!" when a refugee knocked on their door), his associate Edouard Thies and the schoolmaster Roger Darcissac mobilized the population to succor all who fled the Nazis. 

It accepted immediately and unanimously. 

• Trocmé asked his cousin, Daniel Trocmé, to head a shelter for 20 children whose parents had been deported. Daniel wrote to his parents:

Weapons of the Spirit

Since this morning the die is cast. André has written that he counts on me. 

Le Chambon means for me a kind of contribution to rebuilding our world  [...] a positive response to a vocation, a call that is quite intimate and almost religious — in a way even entirely religious — the future will say whether I was equal to the task or not — and will say so only to me, for it is not a matter of worldly success [...].

 I choose it so as not to be ashamed. 

-- September 9, 1942

• Later he described seeking clothes for the children in neighboring towns...

taking care of their health, carving them wooden shoes, dealing with the authorities, handling the accounting,* making the heating system work, keeping in touch with parents when there were any, telling stories, directing a chorale, managing the sequels of a fire. André added later that he would bring them hot soup at school at noon and at night cut up old tires to make soles for shoes. At first Daniel said that he often felt alone but later, "We are coming together as a family." 

*Funds came from Quaker, pacifist and Jewish associations by roundabout routes. 

• When the couple heading a refuge for young men found the job too dangerous and retired, Daniel agreed to manage it as well.

The young men at the refuge.

• At dawn on May 23, 1943, the Gestapo surrounded the refuge.

Daniel was at the children's home when a boy rushed up on his bike, shouting "Mr. Trocmé, the Germans are here. Leave!" He could escape into the forest. But he went to the young men instead. He was responsible for them.

Henry Aubin

The children's refuge, a few steps from the forest.

• The Gestapo arrested them all. Daniel died in the gas chamber of Maïdenek, an extermination camp in Poland. He was 32.

-- This information comes from an account based on Daniel's letters
written by his brother, Charles Trocmé, in 1976.

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Protestant silence: "We do not praise people for doing their duty."

-- The Deputy Mayor at Le Chambon,

explaining why no street or plaque honors a rescuer by name,
though such plaques are common in France.

Others tell the story:

.

-- Weapons of the spirit by Pierre Sauvage, 1987,

an award-winning documentary made when one could still interview the rescuers.

-- Daniel's choice: full chapter on web,
"We only know men: the rescue of Jews in France during the Holocaust"
by Patrick Henry, 2007.

-- Magda et André Trocmé, figures de résistance,
 by Pierre Boismorand, 2007.

-- Le Village des Justes by Emmaneul Deun, 2013

The Plateau by Maggie Paxson, 2019

Why the Citizens of a French Plateau Saved Hundreds during the Holocaust,

Forward, 2019.

The Jewish survivors gave the town a plaque and a small museum opened in 2014.

But the population still says nothing,

because they only did their duty. 
André and Daniel Trocmé are Catherine Aubin's uncles.

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Next,
6.7.

The end of brakes on gain — almost