The Greatest Escape: How one French community saved thousands of lives from the Nazis - A Good Place to Hide

by Peter Grose

  They were not charged with any offence. Neither André nor Magda Trocmé makes any reference in their respective memoirs to an interrogation, and I have not been able to find any record of the questioning of the three men. This in itself is pretty odd. It is hard to see why the authorities would pass up this golden opportunity to put a few pertinent questions to all three of them, but they seem to have decided that locking them up was enough. Without charges and without a line of questions, it is impossible to know just what lay behind the timing of the arrest, or what triggered the arrest itself. However, the intention was very likely to get them locked away where they could do no more damage, and to intimidate them. If that was the plan, it didn’t work.

  • • •

  The Camp de Saint-Paul d’Eyjeaux was a strange place. It was comparatively small, usually holding about 600 people. Some accounts describe it as a ‘concentration camp’, but that goes too far. Its official title was a Centre de Séjour Surveillé (Supervised Accommodation Centre), and it was really an internment camp, rather like Gurs, Rivesaltes and the rest, but with far better conditions. It was not designed principally to hold Jews; instead it was filled with ‘undesirables’, a handy euphemism for political prisoners. About 75 per cent of them were communists. The rest were made up of a mixture of Jews, Freemasons and anarchists. There were inmates of all ages and from all walks of life: factory workers, farmers, public servants, tradesmen, shopkeepers, even mayors and other elected officials.

  The arrival in this company of two Protestant pastors and a primary school headmaster might have been expected to create a bit of a stir, but it made next to no impression. A good number of the communists could quote Karl Marx verbatim, particularly his oft-repeated maxim ‘Religion … is the opium of the people’, and they weren’t about to raise their non-existent hats to a trio of pacifist God-botherers. Anyway, if they had any religion at all they were Catholics, and there were already several Catholic priests on hand. Furthermore, non-violence was not part of their agenda: as far as the communists and anarchists were concerned, nothing important could happen without a violent revolution. After that … well, after the revolution there might be time for peace and brotherhood. But until the streets ran red with blood, things would never get better.

  From Trocmé and Theis’s point of view, this was rather like an old-fashioned Christian missionary suddenly coming upon a whole fresh tribe of heathens ripe for conversion. There was work to be done. The two pastors asked the camp superintendent if they could conduct Protestant church services in the camp. The superintendent agreed. After all, he had said yes to the same question from the Catholics, and he was a fair-minded man.

  The first service attracted only three people, but the numbers gradually swelled to twenty and then to 40. Trocmé preached peace, non-violence, equality and brotherly love. The listening communists might have had a problem with the non-violence, but the rest sounded fine. They formed discussion groups, and even found coded ways to discuss touchy subjects. There were teaching classes. Roger Darcissac organised a singing group. If the idea of internment had been to silence the two pastors and the schoolteacher, so far so very ineffectual.

  And if the idea had been to give the authorities a quieter life, that didn’t work either. The arrest of the three men was followed by something akin to uproar. One of the most significant protests came from Marc Boegner. As we have seen, the head of the Reformed Church in France had not exactly rushed to Trocmé’s support in the past. Indeed, in the early months of the Vichy government, he was inclined to give Marshal Pétain the benefit of the doubt. Boegner served on the National Council of Vichy, a strange, unelected body of 300 representatives appointed to advise the government. But after the round-ups of Jews in 1942, he had seen the light. He wrote repeatedly to Pétain protesting strongly over the Vichy regime’s treatment of Jews. On 22 September 1942 he had issued a statement read in almost every Protestant church in France. It said:

  The Reformed Church of France cannot remain silent in the face of the suffering of thousands of human beings who have found asylum on our soil. Divine law cannot accept that families willed by God can be broken, children be separated from their mothers, the right of exile and compassion be unrecognised, respect for the human person be violated, and helpless individuals be surrendered to a tragic fate.

  Boegner kept a logbook of his daily activities. On 14 February 1943, the day after Trocmé’s arrest, he wrote: ‘Received two telegrams last night from Le Chambon telling me of the arrest of Trocmé and Theis. By which police? Where are they? I still don’t know anything, and what can I do? I’m ashamed.’ On 19 February: ‘Went to see Bousquet this morning [René Bousquet, secretary general of the French Police]. He knew nothing about any of this. He promised he would write to me this evening, responding to my questions.’ So we can be fairly sure that Boegner used his contacts within the Vichy regime to demand that Trocmé and Theis either be charged with a crime and tried, or released.

  Most histories credit Robert Bach, the prefect of the Haute-Loire, with high-level intervention on behalf of the three men. Some go so far as to say that he too approached Bousquet. But none of the histories quotes from a specific document, and my extensive trawls through the departmental archives in Le Puy produced nothing, so these stories may be apocryphal. What we do know is that on 4 March 1943, Bach sent a report to the central government that included a section headed ‘Public reaction to the internal policies of the government’. After dealing with the STO—which, Bach said, was causing ‘deep emotion’—he concluded his report by dealing with the arrest and internment of Trocmé, Theis and Darcissac. This had been ‘very unpopular’, he wrote. It was particularly unfortunate because things had been going swimmingly on the Plateau after the visit of Lamirand in August 1942. ‘Since [the visit], the population has been won over to the policies of the government,’ Bach wrote. This was complete hogwash, and well Bach knew it. So at least it can be said that he was prepared to lie to his masters to assist the release of the three men. He concluded his report with the words: ‘I am afraid these measures will send this improvement in public opinion into reverse if they carry on too long.’

  At the local level, the uproar was even noisier. One of the more popular figures in Le Chambon was the doctor, Roger Le Forestier. He was a remarkable man. Having worked with Albert Schweitzer in Africa, he had arrived in Le Chambon in 1936 and become a key member of the community. Now he was up in arms. He related his actions with characteristic glee and self-mockery in a letter to André Trocmé dated 21 February 1943, and received by Trocmé at Camp de Saint-Paul d’Eyjeaux.

  We are thinking of you.

  The church in Le Chambon is not really like the dove of the Holy Spirit, it’s more like a duck … after its head has been cut off, it still runs about automatically. I found out from elsewhere that the whole of Protestant France knows your story. Some are furious that the Church and Christians are being persecuted anew, others pin their hopes on God. Stay courageous and strong, God is at work.

  When I left you, I went with Daniel Trocmé to Vichy. The following Tuesday I was received by the chief of staff of Monsieur Cadot, who is from the general secretariat of the police and Minister of the Interior. I handed over the letter of introduction right at the beginning, which went something like this: ‘I request an audience on the subject of the internment of three friends. They are respectively the pastor of a parish with 1200 members, the headmaster of a school with 400 students, and the father of 8, 4 and 3 children.’35

  I had some beautiful phrases at the ready: ‘You have struck at the heart of French Protestantism,’ or ‘You will be handing the martyr’s palm to my friends, and they don’t want it,’ or ‘Their freedom cannot be subject to conditions, because these men of God are all from a single block, they preach the Gospel and Divine law overrules human law,’ etc …, and this one: ‘You have been misinformed by agents who are strangers to Protestantism and the Chambon community.’ Finally I demanded ‘that a serious
inquiry be set up, not using sneaky informers’ but involving prominent citizens.

  I have learned that the Prefect Bach asked for a similar inquiry, and that it was set up in the last few days.

  Finally, I advise you to stay in the camp where you are. There you have men who are sturdy and of mature age to bring to Faith and Salvation. Here there is nothing but a few women who have already been saved. The friends from Le Chambon, whose names are too many to list here, join with me in telling you of their faith and total affectionate friendship.

  R. LE FORESTIER

  So the outcry functioned at three levels. On the ground, if Le Forestier is to be believed, the whole of Protestant France was up in arms. It all smacked of a return to the bad old days, when Protestants were hunted down and relentlessly persecuted. The authorities had to be stopped before the new persecution got out of hand. At the departmental level, the prefect Robert Bach was unhappy with the spreading row on his patch, and no doubt dreading the thought of receiving endless delegations from Protestants from all over his department demanding the release of the men. And at the highest level, Marc Boegner and others were tugging at any string they could find.

  It is impossible to know exactly what triggered off the next step, but it is a fair guess that high-level string-pulling did the job. Boegner’s protests in particular may even have travelled as far as the desk of Pierre Laval, the Vichy prime minister, perhaps passed on to Laval by Bousquet. Boegner had had repeated meetings with Laval over the years, so the two men knew each other. There is no record of a direct approach by Boegner to Laval on this occasion, but Laval was nevertheless implicated on 15 March, when the camp commandant summoned the three prisoners and told them they were to be released that morning and put on the train home at 10 am. The release order had come from the office of the prime minister himself, the commandant said. The three men should gather up their belongings then come back to sign a few papers and they would be on their way.

  This proved to be easier said than done. When the three men read the paper to be signed, they found it contained a clause requiring them to swear allegiance to the government of Marshal Pétain and to undertake to obey its orders. As school headmaster, Roger Darcissac had no choice. He was a public servant paid by the government; if he didn’t sign, he would lose his job and be unable to support his family. So he signed, and left on the five o’clock train.

  However, the two pastors refused. It would be a breach of the Ninth Commandment, they explained, which forbade bearing false witness. The camp commandant urged a bit of cynicism on them. Just sign, he said, nobody will pay any attention afterwards, it’s just a formality. The two pastors stuck to their position. To the commandant’s astonishment, they returned to their prison hut, where their fellow inmates couldn’t believe what they were hearing. You’d let a worthless promise on a piece of paper stop you from getting out of here? You must be mad.

  Given the power politics now apparently involved, we can only assume that the camp commandant went back to whoever had issued the original release order—Laval’s office, perhaps—for further advice. The next morning, he summoned the two men again. He had new orders. They could leave without signing the paper. They were free.

  We can only guess at whether the following fact was known to the camp commandant at the time of the men’s departure, but it was almost certainly known to whoever ordered their release. A few days later, all the prisoners in the camp—about five hundred men—were packed onto trains and deported to Poland and Silesia. There is no record of any of them being heard from again.

  • • •

  On 18 March 1943, two days after the release of the two pastors, Boegner wrote to Trocmé: ‘I have heard this instant that you and Édouard Theis are to be released. I want you to know straight away how glad I am. Your parish, the school, and the Church all need you.’

  Boegner may have been delighted, but the release of the three men sowed a seed of doubt elsewhere. Until November 1942, it is fair to say that Trocmé’s views, shared by Theis and other pacifist pastors, dominated the thinking on the Plateau. Resist, yes, but without violence and hatred. In fact, love your enemies. So how could evil be overcome? Answer: with the power of reason. Talk to your enemies, make them see sense, that was the way forward. The fact that the pastors had been released peacefully by this very process meant that it had been given fresh credibility. But that, in the eyes of some, presented a problem.

  The change that was about to take place in the dynamics of the Plateau is brilliantly echoed in a classic film. All Westerns are morality plays, and High Noon has a pretty good claim to being the greatest Western of all time. Grace Kelly plays the brand-new Quaker bride of the former town marshal, played by Gary Cooper. The newly married couple leave town at a brisk trot in a splendid horse-drawn carriage. But Cooper knows that a man he sent to prison is returning to town that day with a couple of henchmen, sworn to kill him. He decides he can’t run away and, over Grace Kelly’s protests and threats, turns the carriage around and goes back to town to face the killers, alone.

  Grace Kelly watches the ensuing gunfight fearfully through a window. She is a Quaker and abhors all violence. She naturally fears for her new husband’s life, and she looks on powerlessly. Now two of the killers have Gary Cooper trapped inside a saddlery shop. Cooper is outnumbered and caught in their crossfire. He’s never going to make it. Then, to our shock, an unseen gun fires and one of the killers falls, shot in the back from close range. Gary Cooper has a chance. We switch to Grace Kelly, holding a smoking Colt .45 behind the window. It is one of the bleakest moments in all film history because it seems to say, eloquently and powerfully, that fine principles are one thing, but in the end violence is the only answer.

  At first there had been something approaching a deal between André Trocmé and the Resistance that violence was to be avoided, particularly any violence aimed at the unarmed and convalescing German soldiers in the village. In his book Le Chambon-sur-Lignon sous l’occupation (Le Chambon-sur-Lignon under the Occupation), Pierre Fayol writes: ‘Pastor Trocmé, Léon Eyraud and myself were all agreed that not only should no action be taken against the unarmed men but also that the young people should not do anything reckless that would have grave consequences for the village.’ Oscar Rosowsky gives a slightly different slant to this in a contribution he made in 1990 to a symposium, Le Plateau Vivarais-Lignon: Accueil et Résistance 1939–1944 (The Plateau Vivarais-Lignon: Welcome and Resistance 1939–1944). He told his audience:

  There was agreement at the beginning between the Resistance and André Trocmé that it was acceptable to give the impression that this region was peaceful, one where the opposition remained strictly spiritual. This view of Le Chambon was also the one adopted by the national leadership of the Reformed Church and, we now know, by Mark Boegner.

  In other words, it suited the newly forming Resistance to lull the Vichy and the Germans into believing that the Plateau was a peaceful haven of high-principled pacifism and not a bubbling source of violent trouble. That cover story would give the Resistance time to recruit, arm, organise and train. It would also mean that the rescue operation could continue. In Rosowsky’s view, Trocmé’s arrest, and the probability that he would be arrested again, threatened that timing:

  If the pastor had been deported, there was a risk that reprisal actions against the convalescing German soldiers stationed in Le Chambon would get out of control, because the general tactic at the time consisted of hitting back every time someone was hit. The whole action strategy up until then of clandestine refuge and silent preparation for the battles to come, which was the policy of the Secret Army, was placed in danger.

  Presumably, though, this is far from the whole story. Surely André Trocmé presented a bigger problem than that for the Resistance? All guerrilla armies depend on the support of the local population, particularly the rural population: the Viet Cong needed the peasants, the IRA needed the Catholics, the jihadists today need the villagers. The Secret Army would nee
d the support of the local rural population. Yet André Trocmé opposed all violence. His often-stated fear was that the civil disobedience he preached would transform itself into armed insurrection. If that happened, there was a chance he might feel obliged to denounce the violence of the Resistance from the pulpit. He had a long history of consistency, after all. And if he denounced the Resistance, then his unique authority might threaten the absolutely vital support of the local population for the maquis.

  Fayol was clearly aware of this. He wrote: ‘The pastor Trocmé was a conscientious objector, not just in matters military but in the true sense of the word, objecting to anything which offended his conscience. He knew that his words would be listened to.’ Rosowsky also hinted at this same problem:

  Trocmé clung to the idea of a liberation that could be achieved without any military participation. From this point of view, there was a conflict not only with the tradition of military resistance by French-speaking Huguenots but also with all those who were rejoining the various sections of the Resistance.

  Trocmé’s arrest and release in early 1943 planted the first tiny seed of a previously unthinkable thought. After his return, Trocmé continued to preach anti-government resistance and civil disobedience. In the past, his tactics with the authorities had included marching into the lion’s den and demanding to be heard. There was a genuine risk that he would do this once too often, and that the authorities would simply arrest him, intern him, then deport him, as they did to so many others. That would unleash forces that the Secret Army would rather have kept in their box. Timing was everything, and Trocmé’s activities put that timing at risk.