No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 May 2013
Between 1940 and 1945, in the midst of the Holocaust, the citizens of the small town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon rescued several hundred Jewish refugees from certain death. Historians, ethicists, witnesses and participants have pondered the reasons for this altruistic behavior, and have pointed in particular to the faith of the rescuers as the source of their exceptional courage. By examining the theological, economic, and cultural diversity of the region, this article evaluates these claims and challenges in particular traditional narratives of Protestant exceptionalism. This work also seeks to explain why these particular narratives emerged and eventually conflicted with one another. It seems that the rescue on the Plateau resulted from a unique convergence of means, individual and institutional convictions, and cultural habits. In probing the exact role of religious commitment and culture during World War II, a more complex and dynamic picture emerges—and what becomes apparent challenges traditional visions of Huguenots as constant and unequivocal supporters of their Jewish neighbors.
1 “Never Again: What You Do Matters,” National Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance in the Rotunda of the Capitol (April 23, 2009), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum [USHMM], Washington, D.C., http://www.ushmm.org/remembrance/dor/years/view_video.php?content=2009&video=obama.
2 Le Chambon is also featured in the permanent Exhibition Guide, USHMM, http://www.ushmm.org/visit/peguide.pdf.
3 Hallie, Philip, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There (New York: Harper & Row, 1979)Google Scholar; Weapons of the Spirit, directed by Pierre Sauvage, 90 minutes (1989; Los Angeles, Calif : Chambon Fondation, 2009),Google Scholar DVD; Henry, Patrick, We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France during the Holocaust (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University Press in America, 2007)Google Scholar. We will not deal extensively with Patrick Henry's analysis, but his work will be examined more thoroughly in a later article on the memory of Le Chambon.
4 Sommers, Christina Hoff, Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1985), 4–19Google Scholar. Hoff Sommers's book is still in print and scheduled to be reprinted in 2013.
5 French historians have devoted lengthy studies to local Protestant culture and its rejection of antisemitism. On Le Chambon and the Cévennes in particular, Boulet, François, “L’Attitude Spirituelle des Protestants devant les Juifs Réfugiés,” in Le Plateau Vivarais-Lignon: Accueil et Résistance, 1939–1944. Actes du Colloque du Chambon-sur-Lignon, ed. Bolle, Pierre (Le Chambon-sur-Lignon: Société de l'Histoire de la Montagne, 1992), 401–428Google Scholar; Bolle, Pierre, “Protestants et Juifs dans la Seconde Guerre Mondiale,” in La Deuxième Guerre Mondiale, des Terres de Refuge aux Musées, eds. Cabanel, Patrick and Gervereau, Laurent (Saint-Agrève: Sivom Vivarais-Lignon, 2003), 81–92Google Scholar, and, in the same volume, Patrick Cabanel, “L’Israël des Cévennes. Réflexions sur une “Exception Huguenote” face aux Juifs,” 207–222. More generally, see Cabanel, Patrick, Juifs et Protestants en France, les Affinités Électives, XVIe–XXIe Siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2004)Google Scholar.
6 For a summary of the material available on this topic, see Yagil, Limore, La France, Terre de Refuge et de Désobéissance Civile. Tome 3: Implication des Milieux Catholiques et Protestants. L’Aide aux Résistants (Paris: Cerf, 2010), 193–236Google Scholar. Marc Boegner protested the regime's antisemitic measures early on, and repeatedly assured the French Jewish community of his support. Beyond Boegner's interventions, Protestants leaders (mostly pastors) gathered in 1941 and 1942 and collectively wrote the Thèses de Pomeyrol denouncing totalitarianism and antisemitism. For further information see the third section of this article.
7 Poujol, Jacques, “Cimade,” Protestants dans la France en Guerre 1939–1945. Dictionnaire Thématique et Biographique (Paris: Éditions de Paris, Diffusion Harmonia Mundi, 2000), 41–46Google Scholar.
8 Suchon-Fouquet, Sandrine, Résistance et Liberté. Dieulefit, 1940–1944 (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 2010)Google Scholar. Poujol, Jacques and Cabanel, Patrick, eds., Cévennes, Terre de Refuge, 1940–1944 (Montpellier: Les Presses du Languedoc, 2006)Google Scholar.
9 Overt Protestant antisemitism seems to have been confined to a small minority, such as the readers of Sully. For instance, the activities and publications of the Noël Vesper, a monarchist and antisemitic Protestant pastor, have generated a few articles. Fréchet, Yves, “Sully (1933–1944): Analyse Politique d'un Périodique Protestant et Monarchiste” in Les Protestants Français pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Actes du Colloque de Paris, 19–21 novembre 1992, eds. Encrevé, André and Poujol, Jacques (Paris: Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français, 1994), 469–478Google Scholar.
10 Boulet, Pierre Laborie and François, “L’Évolution de l’Opinion Protestante,” in Les Protestants Français pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Actes du Colloque de Paris, 19–21 novembre 1992, eds. Encrevé, André and Poujol, Jacques (Paris: Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français, 1994), 407–435Google Scholar. Another study based on the archives of the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives (CGQJ) reaches very similar conclusions. Early Protestant reactions were not different from that of other French people. But with the increase of repressive measures against Jews and the deportations, pro-Jewish sentiments woke up among Protestants. Cohen, Asher “L’Attitude des Protestants envers les Juifs” in Cévennes, Terre de Refuge, 1940–1944Google Scholar, 135. For words of caution on the ability to extrapolate on the basis of limited studies, see Yagil, 236.
11 “Chambon sur Lignon,” Musée Virtuel du Protestantisme Français, http://www.museeprotestant.org/Pages/Notices.php?scatid=25¬iceid=723&lev=1&Lget=EN.
12 Cabanel and Gervereau, La Deuxième Guerre Mondiale, 208. François Boulet also argues that “spirituality is at the heart of the resistance on the Mountain,” (Histoire de la Montagne-Refuge aux Limites de la Haute-Loire et de l’Ardèche [Polignac: Éditions du Roure, 2008], 211)Google Scholar.
13 Cabanel, Juifs et Protestants en France, 303.
14 This expression is borrowed from Cabanel's work, who in Juifs et Protestants en France speaks of “une amitié judéo-protestante.”
15 My research included the consultation of the archives at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, at the Peace Library in Swarthmore, in the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris, and at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., as well as personal interviews. My focus on Protestantism allows me to consider a more narrow scope of sources and questions, but does not imply that Protestantism was the single or even the most significant factor explaining the rescue.
16 Recent studies indicate that the rescue gained momentum after 1942 among Catholics and non-believers as well. Yagil, Limore, La France, Terre de Refuge et de Désobéissance Civile. Tome 2: Implication des Fonctionnaires–Le Sauvetage aux Frontières et dans les Villages—Refuges (Paris: Cerf, 2010)Google Scholar.
17 Boulet, François, “Quelques Éléments Statistiques,” in Le Plateau Vivarais-Lignon: Accueil et Résistance, 1939–1944. Actes du Colloque du Chambon-sur-Lignon, ed. Bolle, Pierre (Le Chambon-sur-Lignon: Société de l'Histoire de la Montagne, 1992)Google Scholar, 287. See also, Jacques Poujol, who argues that among the 24,000 inhabitants, 8,000 were Protestants, in Les Protestants dans la France en Guerre, 41.
18 Pastor Daniel Curtet, for instance, “came into contact with Jewish refugees through the pastorale.” His testimony is preserved in the Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, file 3797. On the actions of the pastors of the Plateau, see Le Plateau, “Témoignages des anciens Pasteurs,” including Curtet, André Bettex, Charles Delizy, and Daniel Besson, 54–81. See also Batten, Alicia, “Reading the Bible in Occupied France: André Trocmé and Le Chambon,” Harvard Theological Review 103, no. 3 (2010): 309–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 André Trocmé, Autobiographie, Series A, Box 1, 1979 version, 356, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 211. Batten, 322: “The pastor would meet with these people, many of them youth leaders, and work through a discussion of biblical passages and prayers addressing how these issues applied to the community. The leaders, referred to as the responsables, would then go to 13 different areas of the parish, and continue the conversation about the Bible and theological ideas while providing practical guidance and strategy for the people who were harboring refugees.”
20 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 219–222.
21 Roger Darcissac, the Protestant director of Le Chambon public school, first refused to provide the names of Jewish students in his school, and then supplied them with false papers. See Roger Darcissac's interview in Weapons of the Spirit. Darcissac's arrest, alongside pastors Trocmé and Theis in 1943, attests to his central role in the movement.
22 C.I.M.A.D.E. stands for Comité Inter-Mouvement Auprès des Évacués. Founded in 1939 to assist the French refugees from Alsace and Lorraine, the organization gained access to internment camps in France and founded homes throughout the country. Jeanne Merle d’Aubigné, Mouchon, Violette, and Fabre, Émile C., Les Clandestins de Dieu: CIMADE 1939–1945 (Paris: Editions Fayard, 1968)Google Scholar and Jacques, André et al. , Madeleine Barot, 1909–1995 (Paris: Cimade, Service Oecuménique d'Entraide, 1996)Google Scholar.
23 Between 1940 and 1942, seven homes opened in Le Chambon (including the Côteau Fleuri, La Guespy and Abric) and could accommodate 240 children. For instance, the Cimade supported the Côteau Fleuri that hosted 50 persons. Michel Fabréguet, “Rapport Général: Les Réfugiés et l’Accueil,” Le Plateau, 141; and Boulet, “Quelques Éléments,” 289–291.
24 Many of the pastors on the Plateau were Swiss. The former maire of Le Chambon was one of the essential relays between Geneva and the Plateau, supplying both funds and guidance from and to Switzerland. See Bolle, Pierre, “Charles Guillon, Maire du Chambon,” in Le Plateau, 42–53Google Scholar, as well as Trocmé, 351, also in Pierre Boismorand, Magda et André Trocmé. Figures de Resistances (Paris: Cerf, 2007), 138. At the national level, “The entry into Switzerland [had] been negotiated by M. Boegner in Berne . . . The World Council of Churches, in Geneva, organized the hosting. It was also the World Council that sent to the Cimade, from Protestant churches in Switzerland, the United States and Sweden, money, food and clothes” (Comité Inter-mouvements Auprès des Évacués, Quelques Actions des Protestants de France en Faveurs des Juifs Persécutés sous l’Occupation Allemande, 1940–1944 [Paris: Cimade, 1945]Google Scholar, 2). Both Charles Guillon and André Trocmé had established relationships with Swiss organizations that financed children homes in the region. Trocmé, for instance, met Burns Chalmers, the American Friends Committee's representative in Marseille, and Chalmers helped to finance a children home in Le Chambon, La Guespy, in 1941 (Boismorand, 138). The financial support for La Gespy, l’Abric and Faidoli came primarily from the Secours Suisse. On La Guespy, see Bohny, Auguste, “Le Secours Suisse—1941/1944,” Le PlateauGoogle Scholar, 194.
25 Until the 1990 conference on the refuge and resistance in the region, most of the works on the rescue dealt primarily with the little town of Le Chambon, as opposed to the Plateau. See Hallie's Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed and Sauvage's Weapons of the Spirit. Pierre Bolle could declare, at the end of the 1990 conference, that “without the Plateau, there would not have been any Le Chambon” (Bolle, Le Plateau, 582 [see also 17–18]). There is a further controversy on the most appropriate term to use to designate the region. In this article, I will use the terms “Plateau,” “Mountain,” and “region” interchangeably. On the terminology, see Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 9–15; and on the controversy, see Poujol, Protestants dans la France en Guerre, articles “Le Chambon” and “Le Plateau Vivarais-Lignon.”
26 There were some denunciations, but they did not seem to come from Catholics more than from Protestants, and they remained extremely rare. Boulet, “L’Attitude Spirituelle,” 412.
27 A 1945 report from the French Reformed Church provides a sense of the connections that had been woven during the war, particularly thanks to the Cimade, and makes it clear that this web extended beyond the Protestant world, including Catholic priests, bishops and convents. Comité Inter-mouvements Auprès des Évacués, Quelques Actions.
28 Barot, Les Clandestins de Dieu, 34.
29 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 188–192. Recently, it has become clear that the Protestant local préfet, Bach, also acted as one of the protectors of the region.
30 The Préfets were the State's representative and administrators in the départements. Their responsibilities expanded considerably under the Vichy Regime, notably in the domains of food supply and security.
31 Yagil, 2:398.
32 Mireille Benvéniste's family was hosted in Fay-sur-Lignon. Other witnesses speak of “Protestant priests” and were clearly unsure about the distinctions between Catholics and Protestants. Mireille Benvéniste, interview 34425, and Egon Gruenhut, interview 40167, Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation Institute, http://sfi.usc.edu/, accessed online on June 13, 2011, USHMM. While Catholic families such as Roussel, Boulet, and Millard welcomed Jews in their homes, Les Petits Bergers des Cévennes, a Catholic charitable organization, placed a few of the Jewish children it rescued on the Plateau. Bolle, Le Plateau, 83–84 and 412. Overall, the local Catholic clergy seemed to remain more careful as Pastor Raoul Lhermet made it clear when his request for help for the Cimade was met with “the benevolence” of the Catholic bishop Joseph Maire Martin who protected “his own Jews” but would not “commit himself all the way.” It is nearly impossible to compare statistically the involvement of Catholics to that of Protestants because Catholic participation in the region resulted from individual decisions, rather than from a more institutional and concerted effort. Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 186. Henri Dubois, “Les Communautés Catholiques du Plateau,” in Le Plateau, 82–83.
33 Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, interview of Georgette and Gabrielle Barraud, file 3833–4905d, letter from Serge Sobelman, November 3, 1987.
34 See Lydia Jablonski, interview 10116 and Fanny Ben-Ami, interview 18496, Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation Institute, http://sfi.usc.edu/, accessed online on June 13, 2011, USHMM.
35 Of course, the possibility of rescue rested in the parents’ heartbreaking decision to be separated from their sons and daughters, to allow their children to escape the French camps and to find shelter on the Plateau. On the giving up of one's child as an act of resistance, see Sémelin, Jacques, Andrieu, Claire, and Gensburger, Sarah, La Résistance aux Génocides. De la Pluralité des Actes de Sauvetage (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2008), 507–508CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Madeleine Dreyfus, “L’O.S.E.,” in Le Plateau, 217.
36 She was herself the mother of two young children, and pregnant with the third one when she joined the O.S.E. In 1943, Madeleine was arrested; she survived eleven months in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp. After Madeleine's deportation, a local Jewish Chouraqui took her place as the local head of the O.S.E. Henry, 65–103.
37 The Service André was coordinated by a Protestant, Simone Mairesse. See testimony of Simon Liwerant, interview 13133 as well as Roger Climaud, interview 16264, Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation Institute, http://sfi.usc.edu/, accessed online on June 13, 2011, USHMM.
38 Anny Latour, “La Forteresse Huguenote,” Sens 9/10 (1978): 4. From 1942 on, Oscar Rosowsky, a young Jewish immigrant from Russia, devoted himself to manufacturing false papers for the Jewish refugees.
39 On the range of formal networks involved in the rescue, see Pierre Bolle, Le Plateau, 161–285. In English, Christiane Vander Zeiden, “The Plateau of Hospitality: Jewish Refugee Life on the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon” (PhD diss., Clark University, 2003), 48–88. Organizations included the Cimade, Secours Suisse aux Enfants, Secours Quaker, Service Civil International, Éclaireurs Israélites de France, O.S.E.
40 Hallie argued that it was not so much liberation that stood “opposite to cruelty,” as it was the particular generosity extended to Jews in Le Chambon (13–14). See also Conway, Gertrude, “Strangers in our Midst: Fron Tolerance to Hospitality,” Analytic Teaching 23, no.1 (2003), 51–57Google Scholar. On the local political leaders, see Serge Bernard, Traces Légendaires, Mémoires et Construction Identitaire. Étude Socio-Historique d’une Presqu'île Cévenole en Haute-Loire (Thèse de Doctorat de Sociologie, Université de Poitiers, 2004).
41 The 17 villages are located in Southern France, at a high altitude, between Saint-Étienne and Valence, in the départements of Haute-Loire and Ardèche. For statistical information on the Plateau, including the list of villages, the number of inhabitants, the percentage of Protestants and a more thorough description of the geographical setting, see Fabréguet, “Rapport Général. Les Réfugiés et l’Accueil,” Le Plateau, 129–150, and page 132 in particular.
42 In 1893, a Protestant pastor, Louis Comte, offered summer stays for children from Saint-Étienne through the Oeuvre des Enfants de la Montagne. Other projects followed, organized by charitable institutions such as the Catholic Les Petits Bergers des Cévennes, and the Red Cross. On the development of tourism in the region, see Bollon, Gérard, “La Montagne Protestante, Terre d'Accueil et de Résistance pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (1940–45),” Les Cahiers du Mézenc 14 (July 2002): 25–32Google Scholar; Bernard, 78–83.
43 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 179.
44 Bernard, 82.
45 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 129–131. Overall, the Plateau remained particularly hospitable to children, both in Le Chambon, where educational institutions multiplied and around Saint-Agrève, where women had raised orphans since the nineteenth-century. Bollon, Gérard, Les Villages sur La Montagne: Entre Ardèche et Haute-Loire, Le Plateau, Terre d'Accueil et de Refuge (Le Cheylard: Éditions Dolmazon, 2004), 56–58.Google Scholar
46 Bernard, 55–56 and 84–86. In 1943, Trocmé also worried that “when the situation comes back to normal, our region's peasant could very well fall back into the poverty that had been his fate for so long.” Letter from André Trocmé to Simone (in fact his brother Robert Trocmé), February 13, 1943, Swarthmore Peace Library, also published in Boismorand, , Magda et André TrocméGoogle Scholar, 154.
47 Chabrut, Gilbert, Darcissac, Roger, and Trocmé, André, Le Visage et l'Âme du Chambon (Le Chambon-sur-Lignon: Éditions Messageries Evangéliques, 1943)Google Scholar, 17.
48 Michel Fabréguet, “Rapport Général. Les Réfugiés et l'Accueil,” in Le Plateau, 134.
49 Trocmé, Autobiographie, Series A, Box 1, 1979 version, 356, Swarthmore College Peace Collection: “the real problem was the relationship between the people of the countryside, whose habits were challenged, who found themselves overwhelmed by the presence of refugees they could not distinguish from tourists.”
50 Rapport de Juillet 1942 de l'Aumônerie Nationale, Fond FSJS, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, côte CCXIX-6_005.
51 In general, the ability to differentiate between Jewish and non Jewish refugees is vexed by the nature of the sources available: records are far from complete, they do not always state the religious background of students, and when numbers are available, they represent only a small fraction of the population and evolve with time. Numbers are particularly difficult to establish for Jews sheltered by individual farmers, Le Plateau, 306. Bernard, 85–86.
52 Since the first historical conference held in Le Chambon in 1990, the question of the number of people saved on the Plateau has not been resolved. Some speak of the 5,000 Jews saved (Hallie, Sauvage as well as Rosowsky). Authors based their estimate on the number of false papers produced in 1943 and 1944. Historians relying on archives give much lower estimates, which do not go beyond one thousand. See in particular Boulet and Rosowsky's debate in Le Plateau, 306–313.
53 According to Gérard Bollon, “for many, this hospitality is grounded in the Biblical principles of the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes: ‘Share your bread . . . welcome and protect the foreigner . . . help and love your neighbor.’” Bollon, Les Villages, 93 and Bollon, “Les Traditions d'Accueil pendant la Guerre,” Le Plateau, 151–160. Menut, Georges, Le Chambon-sur-Ligon, un Village pas comme les autres (Le Chambon-sur-Lignon: Société d'Histoire de la Montagne, 1992)Google Scholar.
54 Bernard, 377.
55 “Elite” here refers less to an economic class than to leaders, particularly the people listed by the Vichy authorities as part of the suspicious “Protestant Circle.” On the “Protestant circle,” see Boulet, “L'Attitude Spirituelle,” 413–415 and Histoire de la Montagne, 161–170. This illustrious group included educated men who all had traveled internationally, the former maire and pastor of Le Chambon, Charles Guillon, the two current pastors, Trocmé and Theis, the town's doctor, Roger Le Forestier, and André Philip, the former député.
56 Trocmé and Theis's famous message on the “Weapons of the Spirit” was not specifically connected to the fate of Jews. On June 23, 1940 Trocmé and his colleague emphasized that the hour of humiliation had come, and insisted that the community had to love, forgive, do good for its enemies, and to resist all attempts to force one to submit to things contrary to the orders of the Gospel. Georges Menut, “André Trocmé, un Violent Vaincu par Dieu,” and Bolle “La Résistance Spirituelle sur le Plateau,” in Le Plateau, 390–391 and 332 respectively. For the original text, see 597–99.
57 Few of the sermons from the time have been preserved. In their absence, the local newspaper L'Écho de la Montagne provides insight into the evolution of the pastors' attitudes toward the Vichy government. Until 1942, the topics of sermons aligned themselves with the Vichy government's concerns and its politics of moral renewal, with the rare exception of Charles Westphal's and Trocmé's messages about totalitarianism.
58 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 415.
59 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 198–200. The pastors of Le Chambon in particular worked closely with the French Reformed Church, as well as with pacifist groups (such as the Quakers), to host refugees from internment camps. Fabréguet, 141.
60 Testimony of August Bohny, in Desaix, Deborah Durland and Ruelle, Karen Gray, Hidden on the Mountain. Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon (New York, Holiday House: 2007)Google Scholar, 59.
61 Le Plateau, captions 17 and 20.
62 Oscar Rosowsky, “Pourquoi les Protestants,” Les Enfants Cachés, Bulletin 29 (1999), 11.
63 On the ambiguous attitude of the Plateau toward Spanish refugees, see Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 137–140.
64 After the French defeat and the adoption of the first Statut des Juifs by the Vichy Regime, French authorities held them, not as suspicious German enemies, but rather as foreign Jews. Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 149–151. Gérard Bollon, “Tence, 1939–1944: du Camp d'Internement de la Papeterie à la Protection des Persécutés,” and Boulet, François, “Tence face aux Espagnols, aux Juifs, aux Gens du Maquis et . . . au Chambon-sur-Lignon,” Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Tence 23 (2006): 29–31Google Scholar.
65 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 151.
66 On Leenhardt's help to the Jewish families that had joined their relatives in Tence, see Bollon, Les Villages sur la Montagne, 97. On Leenhardt himself, Flaud, Annick and Bollon, Gérard, Paroles de Réfugiés, Paroles de Justes (Le Cheylard: Dolmazon, 2009), 88–90Google Scholar.
67 Peschanski, Denis, La France des Camps. L'Internement, 1938–1946 (Paris: Gallimard, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 251.
68 Opinions varied among organizations that had access to the camps: while some (such as the Quakers) argued for the improvement of conditions for children in camps so as not to separate families, others (such as the O.S.E. and the Secours Suisse) argued for the children to leave the camps. It was only in October of 1941 that the Comité de Nîmes, strongly pressed by Joseph Weill, the president of O.S.E., agreed with the second group. This explains why most of the 4,000 children imprisoned between 1940 and 1942 were pulled out of the camps, either legally or illegally. Peschanski, 251.
69 Boulet, “L'Attitude Spirituelle,” 408–409.
70 According to Curtet, Trocmé had become “overwhelmed” at that point of time. Daniel Curtet interviewed by Josy Eisenberg, Chambon-sur-Lignon ou l'Autre France, TF1, 1979.
71 Yagil, 1:23–36.
72 Overall, Hallie's conclusions sided with non-violence, and this led him to claim that “the people of Le Chambon helped without harming, saved lives without torturing and destroying other lives,” despite the critical role played by the armed resistance in the area. Hallie, XIX.
73 There has been some debate over the theological commitment of Trocmé to pacifism, especially because he did not become a conscientious objector when he had to perform his military service. Le Plateau, 383–389. The debates surrounding Trocmé's role and the place of non-violent resistance deserve further writing and will be the topic of a later publication.
74 For a description of the different forms of pacifism, and various political movements in 1930s Protestantism, see Limore Yagil, 3:107–110.
75 Yagil, 3:507. This is confirmed by Daniel Besson: “In Le Chambon, with pastors Theis and Trocmé, we were not on the same wave length as the theological schools or the workers of the Cimade who welcomed Karl Barth's messages . . . We started listening to him in the parishes of the Plateau after the Fall of 1942, with the arrival of men such as André Morel and Daniel Curtet,” (Le Plateau, 120).
In the 1930s the thought of Karl Barth had spread in France, in particular his vision of the Church as a moral guide to the State, that would stand against it if necessary. Karl Barth himself wrote letters that circulated widely in Protestant publications in 1939 and 1940 arguing for resistance against Nazi totalitarianism and rejecting all forms of neutrality. On the issues discussed in the Church in the interwar period, see Dumas, André “Les Grands Courants Théologiques du Protestantisme Français entre 1930 et 1939” in Spiritualité, Théologie et Résistance. Yves de Montcheuil, Théologien au Maquis du Vercors, Pierre Bolle and Jean Godel (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1987), 72–78Google Scholar. In the same volume, see also Letters of Karl Barth to Charles Westphal, Dec. 1939 and to the Protestants of France, October.1940, 155–160 and 161–166 respectively.
76 Le Plateau, 82–124.
77 When Trocmé went into hiding, in 1943, resistance groups organized themselves. He worried that “[his] colleagues . . . [had] let violence creep into the whole village, including the College [Cévenol]'s students,” (Autobiographie, 432–433).
78 The conflict over strategies came home to Le Chambon when some members of the armed resistance, questioning the wisdom of Trocmé's choices, led him to believe he needed to go into hiding. Rosowsky, Le Plateau, 647.
79 Hallie, 145.
80 The episode is narrated in Hallie, 143. Boegner's identity is hidden under the name of Vercingétorix, on account of his impressive moutache. According to Trocmé, Boegner flatly asked him to “stop helping the refugees.”
81 Boegner spoke on the radio as soon as May 1940 on “The Gospel and Racism,” and his letter to the Great Rabbi of France, sent in March 1941, was widely publicized, as was his letter to Maréchal Pétain of August 1941 against racial Laws. Bolle, “Protestants et Juifs dans la Seconde Guerre Mondiale,” 81–89.
82 Marc Boegner to André Trocmé, cited in Boismorand, 117.
83 Trocmé, 392. Both the 1944 and the 1946 reports mention Le Chambon. Quelques Actions, 44. Cabanel, Patrick, “Le Protestantisme Français face à la Shoah et à l'Antisémitisme, de 1945 à nos Jours,” Catholiques et Protestants Français après la Shoah, Revue d'Histoire de la Shoah 192 (2010)Google Scholar, 54.
84 Bolle, “La Résistance Spirituelle,” 330. Trocmé's pietism and moralism, and his work in the anti-alcoholism league, la Croix Bleue, matched well the moral goals of the regime. François Boulet claims that the private school founded by Trocmé benefited from the regime in 1940 and 1941 as Vichy attempted to battle laïcism and antireligious spirit. Boulet, “Les Prédications des Pasteurs,” in Le Plateau, 365.
85 Le Plateau, 330–332.
86 Boismorand, 141.
87 This is precisely how a local pastor portrays the differences between Trocmé and Pierre Rozier, the president of the Regional council: While “the genius was on Trocmé's side, . . . faithful humility was on Rozier's. What was most essential for Rozier was the visible Church he led, and while it was the kingdom of God for Trocmé who lived like a prophet” (Georges Menut, in Le Plateau, 382).
88 See the thèses in Spiritualité, Théologie et Résistance, 172–174 and Pierre Bolle “Les Thèses de Pomeyrol,” Spiritualité, Théologie et Résistance, 182–195. Also, Yagil, 3:113–114. The Plateau was well represented at this meeting since Trocmé, André Chapal, Henry Estoppey, Leenhardt and Theis attended it. Le Plateau, 335.
89 Bolle, “Protestants et Juifs,” 194.
90 Bolle, “La Résistance Spirituelle,” 331 and “Protestants et Juifs,” 195.
91 On the complaints of the pastors, particularly before 1942, but even after this date, see Boulet, “L'Attitude Spirituelle,” 408–409.
92 The development of the armed resistance on the Plateau between 1942 and 1943 and the arrests were sufficient to make the danger involved in the hosting of Jews far more real, and spiritual comfort perhaps more necessary. Compare the chronological elements in Le Plateau, 409 and 415. On the arrests and resistance activities, see Pierre Fayol's testimony in Annick Flaud and Gérard Bollon, 143.
93 In his words, the Bible study groups “saved the situation” (Trocmé, 356). For the study of Trocmé's notes, see Batten; and Boulet, “L'Attitude Spirituelle,” 415–418; and idem, Histoire de la Montagne-Refuge, 211–219.
94 Le Visage et l'Âme du Chambon, 16.
95 In Sauvage's documentary, several rescuers, most compellingly Theis and Marie Brottes, invoke the importance of loving one's neighbor as a motivation.
96 Some American studies have identified a set of simple precepts according to which rescuers operated. For instance, David Gushee lists six major items that are commonly invoked by Christians. We are considering here the most theological of the reasons invoked, and will examine more closely two others (identification with the Jews and experience of persecution) in the next section (Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust: Genocide and Moral Obligation [Saint Paul: Paragon House, 2003], 117–148Google Scholar).
97 Sauvage, Weapons of the Spirit.
98 Curtet, for instance, declined the honor of receiving the medal of the Righteous from Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
99 Testimony of Daniel Besson in Le Plateau, 433.
100 Testimony of Marc Donadille in Le Plateau, 304: “Nous, nous étions des gens qui avaient un travail à faire, et un travail qui les prenait aux tripes. Et ce qu'on cherchait à faire surtout, c'est à oublier ce qu'on savait; et c'est là que nous comprenons que nous sommes une gêne pour les historiens qui voudraient savoir des choses précises; et quelquefois, nous n'arrivons pas à leur donner ce qu'il faudrait pour faire de l'histoire sérieuse. Mais nous savions que si, sous la torture, on arrivait à nous faire raconter des réalités que nous avions vécues, de nombreuses personnes seraient en danger de mort. Voilà pourquoi nous nous efforcions de ne pas nous rappeler. Je crois que les gens qui ne se rappellent pas sont peut-être les meilleurs témoins.”
101 Curtet's words in Le Plateau, 436. Also, Rosowsky did not seek contact with Trocmé so as to avoid linking his activities to that of another group and thereby threatening the existence of both, should one of them be taken prisoner. Interview with Oscar Rosowsky, June 2010.
102 Ms. Maber's words in Le Plateau, 575.
103 On the role of silence, particularly in Dieulefit, see Souchon-Fouquet, Résistance et Liberté.
104 Henri Dubois, “Les Communautés Catholiques du Plateau,” Le Plateau, 85.
105 On the culture of discretion and pragmatism of Huguenots, see François Boulet, “L'Attitude Spirituelle,” 405–406. On the “esprit fondeur,” Le Plateau, 17. This spirit of defiance and suspicion toward political authorities makes sense given French Protestant history, and Trocmé himself remarked on it: “J'ai été pasteur parmi les paysans français pendant dix-sept ans, et je dois dire que j'ai une profonde admiration pour ce pays huguenot, qui séculairement a une profonde méfiance des autorités.” Fond Anny Latour, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, DLXXII, 49, 6.
106 Sauvage, “Le Chambon's Challenge Today,” http://www.chambon.org/sauvage_lcsl_challenge_en.htm.
107 Cabanel, Juifs et Protestants en France, 212.
108 Cabanel has written broadly on this topic, but his views on the judaizing experience of Huguenots are best expressed in “L'Israël des Cévennes,” 216–221.
109 Cabanel, “L'Israël des Cévennes,” 214–216.
110 “Lettre de monsieur le Pasteur Marc Boegner à Monsieur le Grand Rabbin,” in Spiritualité, Théologie et Résistance, 171.
111 Boulet, “L'Attitude Spirituelle,” 403.
112 Recently, historians have debated the process by which this memory of persecution emerged. Was it simply a century-old collective memory that naturally surfaced when the need arose, or was the memory intentionally “resurrected” from above by the leaders and pastors of the region? Boulet, “Juifs et Protestants 1940–1944,” 335–366.
113 They included secret readings of the Bible, deaths of Huguenot martyrs and the women of the Tower of Constance. Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 349.
114 Daniel Curtet interviewed by Josy Eisenberg, Chambon-sur-Lignon ou l'Autre France, TF1, 1979.
115 French historians have devoted lengthy studies to French Protestant culture and its connection to the spirit of resistance. On Le Chambon and the Cévennes in particular, Boulet, “L'Attitude Spirituelle,” 401–428; Bolle, “Protestants et Juifs,” 81–92, and Cabanel “L'Israël des Cévennes,” 207–222. More generally, see Cabanel, Juifs et Protestants, 315.
116 When Darcissac, Theis, and Trocmé were arrested in 1942, people came to witness their departure and started singing Psalms associated with the resistance of the Camisards during the absolute monarchy. See Sauvage, Weapons of the Spirit.
117 Hallie, 179. See also Madame Jouve who was described as a “devout Protestant” by Serge Sobelman, Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, archives, file 4905, 4009.
118 Témoignage de Joseph Bass, Centre de Documentation Juive contemporaine, DLII 3, 2. Bass's vision seems to reflect his encounter with Trocmé, whose moralism and pacifism similarly combined to create a strong movement of opposition to totalitarianism.
119 See for instance, Gushee, 126–27; Zuccotti, Susan, The Holocaust, the French and the Jews (New York: Harper Collins, 1993)Google Scholar.
120 Boulet, “Juifs et Protestants,” 351.
121 See for instance the testimony of Samy Charles who identifies himself as part of a family “qui se rattachait à la tradition protestante républicaine laïque” in “Les résistances, des Espaces Imbriqués,” archives privées Oscar Rosowsky, 5. For a regional analysis of the voting patterns, see Bernard, 278–282. Which of those factors first triggered resistance is not always clear.
122 Daniel Curtet interviewed by Josy Eisenberg.
123 Vidal-Naquet, 7. Marc Donadille, a pastor on the Plateau, also speaks of this common minority status: “[In Nîmes] the small Protestant and Jewish communities identified with each other because we both had always been persecuted by the Catholics.” Block, Gay and Drucker, Malka, Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1992)Google Scholar, 114.
124 Rapport de Juillet 1942 de l'aumônerie nationale, Fond FSJS, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, côte CCXIX-6_005.
125 This is particularly clear in relation to Trocmé. See for instance Hanne's testimony in Hidden on the Mountain, 229; Appel, Rudy in The Courage to Care. Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, ed. Rittner, Carol and Myers, Sondra (New York: New York University Press, 1989)Google Scholar, 119.
126 Trocmé, 349.
127 Boulet, “Quelques Éléments Statistiques,” 287.
128 Bernard, 67. Darbystes clearly understood themselves to be separate from the Reformed, especially since their assemblies functioned without any pastoral leadership, even if they shared in the same memory of persecution. By the 1940s, the wounds generated by the schism were hardly healed. On the Darbystes and the dissident group that broke from them, the Darvinistes, see Daniel Besson, “Les Assemblées de Frères, Darbystes et Ravinistes et l'Accueil des Juifs,” in Le Plateau, 86–89. The Darbystes considered that God's covenant with Jews had not been superseeded by his covenant with Christians. Christian Maillebouis and Gérard Bollon, “Aux confins du Vivarais et du Velay, La Montagne Protestante: Schisme, Dissidence et Reveil (1770–1840),” Actes du Colloque Eglises et Pouvoirs et Sociétés en Ardèche, Revue du Vivarais, 233–245. Wilkinson, Paul William, For Zion's Sake. Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby (Paternoster: Colorado Springs, 2007), 132–134Google Scholar.
129 Hence, the Darbystes referred to Jews as “Old Testaments” that they could hide in the safety of their homes. Marie Brottes spoke for instance of an “old Brother” who, when asked if he could take two “Old Testaments” with him “picked them up and took them with him to the mountain, and hid them.” Marie Brottes interviewed by Pierre Sauvage, Weapons of the Spirit.
130 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 183.
131 See Renée Poznanski, “Antisémitisme et Sauvetage des Juifs en France. Un Duo Insolite?” in Sémelin, Jacques, Andrieu, Claire and Gensburger, Sarah, La Résistance aux Génocides, 99–116Google Scholar.
132 François Boulet, “Préfets et Gendarmes face aux Montagnes-Refuges des Cévennes au Verscors (1940–1944),” La Deuxième Guerre Mondiale, des Terrres de Refuge, 167–171 & 190–193. See also, Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 181.
133 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 224–235.
134 Boulet, “Juifs et Protestants,” 342.
135 Monsieur Kleman interviewed by Josy Eisenberg; Lecomte, François, Jamais Je n'Aurai Quatorze Ans (Paris: Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, 2005)Google Scholar, 287. François Lecomte encountered Old Testament texts, such as that of the story of the Tower of Babel, for the very first time.
136 Vidal-Naquet, 8.
137 Ely Ben-Gal's intervention, in Le Plateau, 318.
138 See for example the experience of Renée Kahn: “There's no electricity, and we get our water from a pump outside. The cow and the goat drink from the same trough that we use when we wash. The Fourniers had never even seen a toothbrush before I came. On Sunday mornings, they wash and dry their feet at the pump. Then they use the same towel to pat dry the goat cheese they've made. It's disgusting” (Deborah Durland Desaix and Karen Gray Ruelle, 186). See also the example of François Stupp in Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 180.
139 Simon Liwerant, interview 13133 at the USC Shoah Foundation. François Boulet also mentions the drastically different experiences of two children placed in the same family on the Plateau–one who found himself “loved, cuddled, protected” while the other was famished. François Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 181. Also Jacques Lévy, interview 5677 at the USC Shoah Foundation, who said he was “accepted, but not welcomed.”
140 Jack Hamburg, Interview 21984, USC Shoah Foundation.
141 Boulet, Histoire de la Montagne, 216–217.
142 Marc Donadille, interviewed by Pierre Sauvage, Weapons of the Spirit.
143 Eisenberg, Chambon-sur-Lignon, l'Autre France.
144 See for instance Peter Feigl, interview 28408 at the USC Shoah Foundation.
145 “We did not talk about this,” said Rosowsky to Eisenberg. “No one in the village has ever asked what my religion is, and there is never any pressure to become Protestant . . . No one talks about it,” Joseph Altlas in Hidden on the Mountain, 215. Jacques Lévy's hosting family, for instance, did not know he was Jewish in interview 5677 at the USC Shoah Foundation.
146 Powell, Lawrence, Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke's Louisiana (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 279–280Google Scholar.
147 Boismorand, 124.
148 In a short book, Cabanel associates Le Chambon-sur-Lignon with another Huguenot site of memory, the Tour de Constance in Aigues-Mortes, where, in the eighteenth century, “some two hundred Protestant women were held prisoners for as long as forty years of their life.” This publication raises an interesting problem for historians: can one contribute to both the work of commemoration and the work of history, when the first provides one clear and partial narrative, while the second emphasizes complexity and multiplicity? See Cabanel, Patrick, La Tour de Constance et Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. L'Oubli et le Royaume (Cahors: La Louve, 2007)Google Scholar.
149 Magda Trocmé, interviewed by Josy Eisenberg, Chambon-sur-Lignon, l'Autre France.