Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

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Le Chambon-sur-Lignon
Coat of arms of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (France)
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon
region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Department Haute Loire
Arrondissement Yssingeaux
Canton Mézenc (main town)
Community association Haut-Lignon
Coordinates 45 ° 4 ′  N , 4 ° 18 ′  E Coordinates: 45 ° 4 ′  N , 4 ° 18 ′  E
height 874-1,139 m
surface 41.71 km 2
Residents 2,470 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 59 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 43400
INSEE code 43051
Website http://ville-lechambonsurlignon.fr/

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a French commune with 2,470 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the department of Haute-Loire in the region Auvergne Rhône-Alpes .

The Huguenot town on the high plateau of the Cevennes in the Massif Central on the river Lignon du Velay became famous for the help of its inhabitants for the Jews threatened by the National Socialists and the regime of Marshal Pétain .

Place and region of refuge

From 1942 onwards, on the initiative of pastor André Trocmé , his wife Magda and other citizens , the inhabitants took in Jews who were threatened with deportation to the concentration camps . They were housed in residents' homes, in the surrounding farms and even in public buildings. When German patrols approached, they were hidden in the countryside outside the village. When the patrols withdrew, the residents went into the woods and sang a certain song to indicate to the Jews that the imminent danger was over.

Among other things, the Comité inter mouvements auprès des évacués - Service œcuménique d'entraide (CIMADE) rented the hotel “Coteau Fleuri” as a maison d'accueil . Thirty-five previous prisoners from Camp de Gurs were housed here in July 1942 , although they had to flee again in August.

In addition, the residents of this area obtained identity papers and ration cards and supported the persecuted when crossing the border into Switzerland. Some residents were arrested, including Daniel Trocmé, the pastor's cousin, who died in Majdanek concentration camp .

August Bohny founded and managed the Abric, Faidoli, Atelier Cévenol and Ferme Ecole children's homes from 1941 to 1944 on behalf of the Working Group for War Damaged Children (SAK) (from 1942 Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross ), where around 200 children each spent around six months. Friedel Bohny-Reiter managed the Abric house from 1943 to 1944. They helped Pastor André Trocmé and the local refugee workers to save numerous children from raids and deportations, to hide them or to bring them to safety in Switzerland.

In the Chambon-sur-Lignon area, 3,000 to 5,000 people were saved from certain death in the camps through the commitment of their residents. The refugees were hiding across the region, in Fay-sur-Lignon, Chaumargeais, Le Mazet-Saint-Voy, Tence , Les Tavas, Freycenet-Saint-Jeures, Chapignac, and Saint-Agrève . There were 20 accommodation options known to date in 12 Protestant communities up to the Ardèche . A total of 23 pastors were involved, as well as individual Catholic priests and the “Darbysts” represented in the area .

In 1990 the Israeli government recognized the region as " Righteous Among the Nations " because of its humanitarian efforts and the courageous resistance in times of danger . In the “ Yad Vashem ” memorial , a spot in the garden of the righteous honors the region - otherwise only the village of Nieuwlande in the Dutch province of Drenthe received such a collective honor . 59 people in the region were also named “Righteous Among the Nations” as individuals or couples (married couples, siblings or parent-child pairs).

Personalities

In 1942 Albert Camus came to Le Chambon to cure tuberculosis. Here he wrote The Misunderstanding and worked on his novel The Plague . Camus' thoughts in his 1942 diary are similar to those of Trocmé, who replied to a Vichy functionary on his intimidating reproach about how dangerous "the Jews" are:

We do not know what a Jew is. We know only men.

“We don't know what a Jew is. We only know people. "

- André Trocmé

The misery and the greatness of the world: it offers no truths, but only objects for love. Absurdity is king, but love saves us from it.

“The misery and the greatness of the world at the same time: it offers no truths, only objects of love. The absurdity dominated everything; but love saves us from her. "

- Albert Camus : The Enigma

The Swiss artist Hans Beutler ran a children's home during this time. One of the many children who were able to survive the Holocaust in Le Chambon thanks to the help of the residents was the future mathematician Alexander Grothendieck .

The philosopher Paul Ricœur lived in the village from 1945 to 1948 and taught there at the Collège Cévenol . When a Paul Ricœur Foundation was established in Paris on May 27, 2010, the President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy , personally gave the founding address and emphasized the spiritual resistance with express reference to Ricœur's temporary place of activity.

In fiction

Romain Gary has one of his protagonists, the old Norman kite maker Ambroise Fleury, refer to Le Chambon in the Resistance novel Memory with Wings :

Seven kites stood in the sky over La Motte. Seven yellow dragons. Seven Jewish stars ... Surrounded by a few children, my uncle Ambroise stood on the meadow in front of the hut and looked up at the sky, where the seven "stars of shame" were floating.

As a punishment for the yellow stars, Ambroise is arrested by the Germans, and after lengthy negotiations he is released. After his return to the kite making workshop

were his first words: “We'll get back to work.” The first kite he put together represented a village against a mountainous background, which was surrounded by a map of France so that one could identify the location of the village. His name was Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in the Cevennes… “Le Chambon. Remember this name! "

Soon afterwards the uncle leaves the village:

“Where do you want to go?” - He replied: “To Le Chambon. As I told you, it is in the Cevennes. “Why? "Because they need me there."

As an explanation, Gary then tells the story of the Jewish children rescued by the villagers, hundreds of them:

Le Chambon's life was devoted entirely to this task for four years. And I want to write down this name again, a symbol of such great willingness to sacrifice: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

It is the time after the liberation from the Germans, autumn 1944. Two old men talk about the future, that of the country and their own. In relation to this, Gary suddenly confesses in the final sentence, which underlines the meaning:

I am now ending this story by writing down the name of Pastor André Trocmé again and that of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, because it couldn't be better expressed.

In I'm looking for my mother's footsteps, Caroline Piketty takes up the memory of the place and the person Uncle "Auguste" with the words: "Some books can give you new strength."

Philip Hallie tells the rescue of the refugees in "The story of the village> Le Chambon <and how good things happened there" (subtitle) in "... That blood is not shed innocently.", Neukirchen-Vluyn 1990, ISBN 3-7887- 0722-4 ; the American original edition was published under the title: "LET INNOCENT BLOOD BE SHED", New York 1979.

Another novel dealing with Le Chambon's rescue of the Jews has so far only been published in French: Ici, on a aimé les juifs by Philippe Boegner.

partnership

Le Chambon maintains a partnership with the municipality of Fislisbach in the Swiss canton of Aargau .

literature

  • Giuditta Rosowsky: Camus et le sauvetage des juifs, in: Archives juives, Jg. 14, H. 1, Paris 1978, pp. 16-18.
  • Philip Hallie : Le Sang des innocents. Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Stock, Paris 1980.
  • in German: "... that innocent blood will not be shed." The history of the village of Le Chambon and how good things happened there. Neukirchener, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2nd edition 1984, ISBN 3-7887-0722-4
  • in English: "Read innocent blood be shed." The story of the village of Le Chambon and how goodness happened.
  • Pierre Sauvage: A most persistent heaven: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. The story of 5000 who would not be bystanders, and of 5000 more. In: Moment, October 1983, pp. 30-35.
  • Magda Trocmé: Le Chambon. In: Carol Rittner & Sandra Myers (eds.): The Courage to Care. Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. New York 1986, pp. 100-107.
  • Francois Rochat & André Modigliani: The Ordinary Quality of Resistance. From Milgram's Laboratory to the Village of Le Chambon. In: Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 51, No.3, 1995, pp. 195-210.
  • Uta Gerdes: Ecumenical solidarity with Christian and Jewish persecuted. The CIMADE in Vichy France 1940–1944. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-55741-8
  • Société d'histoire de la Montagne SHM (ed.): Les Résistances sur le Plateau Vivarais - Lignon du Velay 1938–1945. Témoins, témoignages and lieux de mémoire. Les oubliés de l'histoire parlent. Ed. du Roure, Polignac (Haute-Loire) 2005, ISBN 2-906278-57-2
  • Deborah Durland DeSaix, Karen Gray Ruelle: Hidden on the Mountain. Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon. Holiday House, New York 2006, ISBN 0-8234-1928-2
  • Patrick Henry: We Only Know Men. The Rescue of Jews in France during the Holocaust. Washington 2007
  • André Trocmé: Of angels and donkeys. Stories not just for Christmas . Neufeld , Schwarzenfeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-937896-52-6
  • André Trocmé: Angels don't sing for money. And other Christmas stories. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-86256-002-8
  • Hanna Schott: About love and resistance. The life of Magda & André Trocmé. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-86256-017-2
  • Peter Grose: The Greatest Escape. How one French community saved thousands of lives from the Nazis. Nicholas Brealey, London / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-1-85788-626-9
  • Caroline Moorehead : Village of Secrets. Defying the Nazis in Vichy France. Chatto & Windus, London 2014, ISBN 978-0-7011-8641-8

Movies

  • Weapons of the Spirit. The Astonishing Story of a Unique Conspiracy of Goodness. USA / F 1989. DVD, 90 min, English / French (with English subtitles). Directed by Pierre Sauvage. (Available from the Chambon Foundation, Los Angeles).
  • Les cerfs-volants (based on Gary's novel), Belgium 2007, see web links
  • Heroes who didn't want to be. Documentary by Marc Villiger and Tom Sommer, Switzerland 2015.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Jeanne Merle d'Aubigné, Violette Mouchon, Émile C. Fabre (eds.): Les clandestins de Dieu. Cimade 1940-1944. Fayard, Paris 1968, pp. 75, 112ff. New edition Labor & Fides, 1989, ISBN 2-8309-0588-1 . More articles u. a. by Madeleine Barot . In German: Adolf Freudenberg (Ed.): “Save them!” The French and the Geneva ecumenical movement in the service of those persecuted by the Third Reich. Evangelischer Verlag Zollikon EVZ, Zurich 1969, p. 102, 132ff. New edition as: “Free those who are dragged to death!” Ecumenism through closed borders 1939–1945. Christian Kaiser Verlag , Munich 1989, ISBN 3-459-01591-8 (slightly changed compared to the French orig. And the English translation). - Romain Gary added the name of the hotel in the novel shown below as a throwback to the last name of the protagonist Ambroise Fleury.
  2. ^ Gérard Bollon: La cause des enfants en Haute-Loire orientale. Culture protestante et dynamisme associatif au XXème siècle .
  3. ^ List of the Justes des Nations in the region of Chambon-sur-Lignon
  4. ↑ Giuditta Rosowsky: Camus et le sauvetage of juifs . In: Archives juives 14.1 (1978), pp. 16-18.
  5. ^ Translation of the English version . Originally Trocmé is said to have said: Nous ne savons pas ce qu'est un Juif. Nous connaissons seulement les gens. - “We don't know what it is, a Jew. We only know the people. "
  6. ^ Translation from English. From: The Enigma . In: Lyrical and critical essays . 1950, p. 161, the original in French.
  7. ↑ French original  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Sarkozy also makes frequent references to the place in other speeches, e.g. B. on February 9, 2011 in Paris, on March 3, 2011 in Puy-en-Velay near Le Chambon, on May 8, 2011 in Paris on the 66th anniversary of the final liberation of Europe.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.elysee.fr  
  8. ↑ Property probably in Gonfréville-Caillot
  9. ↑ In his village in Normandy, the raid of the winter velodrome , carried out by French gendarmes on German orders, has just become known. The Jewish victims who were later murdered also included many children. Gary calls it a shame that it was the French, police officers, neighbors and bus drivers who made it possible to round up these numbers of victims. It took 50 years before Giscard d'Estaing, as President of France, publicly stated this fact in 1995. In the 1950s, under government pressure , Alain Resnais had to manipulate the historical footage for the film Nacht und Nebel by trimming the edges in order to make the clearly visible caps of the French gendarmes carrying out the deportation visually disappear. Gary's term "shame" refers to the national shame of collaboration and is at the same time an allusion to the expression "Les enfants de la honté", children of shame, which was widespread in France in the post-war period, for descendants of Franco-German sexual contacts during the occupation . Gary by no means shared the ostentatious and vocal contempt for these women that the vast majority in the country expressed after 1945, as is evident from other of his works. It is now known that a total of 200,000 children in France resulted from such relationships.
  10. ↑ In France, older relatives were or were addressed with "vous" at the time, without this detracting from a deep familiarity, as this novel shows.
  11. ↑ "It" refers to the previous sentence: "who has the last word". Gary's statement: love for children has the final say. - Source: Romain Gary: Memory with Wings. Translated from the French ("Les Cerfs-volants", Paris 1980) by Jeanne Pachnicke. Structure, Berlin (GDR) 1989, ISBN 3-351-01500-3 , pp. 310-313, 410.
  12. ↑ From the French by Uli Aumüller , foreword by Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt , Nagel & Kimche , Munich 2007, p. 74. Misspelling of the first name by the author.
  13. ↑ In German, for example: Jews were held in high regard in this place. J.-C. Lattès, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-7096-0391-8
  14. ↑ Searchable with Google Book Search or in online stores. The book is the only one in German to describe the dramatic scenes when boarding the deportation trains, usually after the Drancy assembly camp (and further "to the east", i.e. to Auschwitz), with most of the deportees having their fate, death, in mind ; and it describes the activities of escape helpers across the mountains to Switzerland. From the archives of the WCC in Geneva, especially Adolf Freudenberg , and the CIMADE in Paris. Zugl. Diss. Theol.
  15. ^ 1. Mémoires en confrontation. Olivier Hatzfeld, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon 1942–1944; Jean-Philippe Le Forestier, on Roger Debiève; Oscar Rosowsky, Témoignages et réflexions; Odile Boissonnat, Henri Bourghea, Gabrielle Barraud, Christian de Monbrison. - 2. Lieux de mémoire and témoins. La rafle de la Maison des Roches. Jean Lévy, l'OSE (Œuvre de secours aux enfants). L'Association des enfants cachés, Daniel Trocmé, Georges Liotard, Lucien Volle. Martin de Framond, on Pierre Piton. - 3. Rescapés et grandes figures: Françoise de Monbrison, Freddy Münch, Jacques Stul, Serge Sobelman, Antonio Plazas, François Boulet. Homage to Pierre Piton, Jean-Philippe Le Forestier on Roger Le Forestier, Michel Fabréguet on Mireille et André Philip. Jean-Pierre Houssel on Lucie Ruel. - 4th Apports nouveaux. Pacifism, resistance and repression; le cas du Major Schmähling, Le maquis de Saint-Jeures (Alphonse Valla). Pierre Brès et la Montagne. L'affaire "Peace News". Contact . Mireille Philip had hired as a stoker on the Franco-Swiss cross-border trains in order to be able to smuggle people into freedom.
  16. ↑ A book for children and young teenagers.
  17. ↑ Entry in the IMDb