Rescue and resistance on the plateau: Why an isolated French community saved thousands of Jews during World War II
Bronwen Hanna
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Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
Hold back those who are staggering towards slaughter
If you say, ‘But, we knew nothing about this’
Does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Proverbs 24 :11,12 |
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One of the great tragedies of Christian history is the failure of the
church to oppose Nazism and the horrors of the holocaust in particular.
On the whole the church’s response to Hitler’s persecution of the Jews
was one of bumbling passivity and indifference; sometimes even
complicity. In Germany the Lutheran church remained rooted to the spot
with a theology that urged obedience to the state and personal piety.
Christians were not to be involved in political matters. The sacred and
the secular were never to mix.
Under siege, the church spent most of
its energy trying to maintain its institutional viability by naively
working together with a political force that was ultimately determined
to destroy it. Both Catholic and Protestant churches were ineffective
at best, and appeared unable or unwilling to take notice of what was
occurring under their noses. Strains of anti-Semitism existing within
the church no doubt blinded it to the fate of the Jewish population.
The consequences were dire - as theologian David Gushee says, ‘The
Holocaust was not merely an event in Christian history but in fact a
nauseating Christian moral failure’. |
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The failures of the church in this era are glaring and undeniable
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The failures of the church in this era are glaring and undeniable. Which is why the story of the rescue of thousands of Jews by the mostly protestant Huguenot Christian villagers along the plateau Vivarais-Lignon, provides such a stunning contrast to what largely took place across Europe in those desperate years. It reveals the importance of theology as a motivator or inhibitor of action, the significance of key leaders, and the way the history of a people can shape them for good or ill. It tells us something of the way Christianity, properly understood, can and should be a force for good.
The Rescue
Between 1940 and 1944 a sustained rescue of refugees, many of whom were Jewish children, took place among the villages running along the isolated plateau Vivarais-Lignon in south central France. The town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in particular, has become known as the heart of the rescuing efforts of the plateau. Up to five thousand people were sheltered in the region in those years. In breathtaking contrast to the collaboration around them, efforts to shelter Jews and other refugees were widespread in the region. The majority of those who did the rescuing reported that they did so because of their ‘Christian’ convictions. Recognised by the Israeli government in 1990, as Righteous among the Gentiles, the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and neighbouring villages are honoured with a plaque on the grounds of Israel’s memorial to the Holocaust.
| After the Nazi takeover in 1940 France was divided into the occupied
Northern zone and ‘unoccupied’ southern Zone. The southern zone was
administered by the collaborating Vichy government, which quickly
passed anti-Semitic laws that were even more severe than those of the
Nazi’s. Foreign-born Jews seeking to escape the Nazis and many French
born Jews were sent to internment camps where they were held in
appalling conditions. Mothers and children were separated and 75,700
Jews were sent from there to the death camps in Poland. Of these
11,402 were children, many under the age of six. |
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Up to five thousand people were sheltered in the region in those years |
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Key players
Jews and other refugees fleeing Hitler were quietly being sheltered on the plateau from the mid 30’s. Charles Guillon, the mayor of Le Chambon had been organizing shelter for such people from 1938. All thirteen Protestant pastors on the plateau urged their congregations to hide refugees 'as their Christian duty' and had their own rescue networks. The rescue expanded when in 1941 André Trocmé, pastor of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, through his contacts with the Quakers working in the internment camps, arranged for his parish to become a place of refuge primarily for children. Trocmé was an outstanding
leader and inspirational preacher; a passionate pacifist who believed
that faith must find itself in action. He was an important catalyst of action in the region.
In 1943 André Trocmé wrote a letter to his older brother saying:
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By the tens by the
hundreds Jews are being directed to Le Chambon. My usual ministry
has ceased completely because of this situation. Normally in
summer, my dining room has been transformed into a waiting room
(10-15 people a day). Now that’s the situation all year round.
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First stop for many of the refugees was the Hotel May on the central intersection of Le Chambon, the Pension Beau Soleil, or the Trocmé Presbytery. Bible-study groups became important communication channels for finding places to hide refugees. Many would be housed in outlying farms where they could slip into the thick forests that cover the area in the event of a roundup. Sometimes entire families would be taken in. Children released from the camps would be taken to Le Chambon by train or bus and sent to one of seven children’s homes in and around the village which were funded by groups such as the Quakers, Swiss Red Cross and pacifist organizations. False identity papers were produced and some refugees were guided along an underground railway to Switzerland.
To some extent it seems this ‘goodness’ was catching. There were raids by gendarmes looking for refugees but Magda Trocmé would be warned of an upcoming raid by a phone call and gendarmes would talk loudly in cafes about which farm they were going to raid next. There is some evidence of purposeful inattention to the rescue activities by the prefect for the region.
After the summer of 1942 things became more precarious after the Germans moved into the southern zone. In 1943, three of the people heavily involved in the rescue were arrested: Trocmé, his assistant-pastor Edouard Theis and Roger Darcissac, headmaster of the public school in Le Chambon. They were released four weeks later, just before the entire camp in which they were imprisoned was deported. In June 1943 the Gestapo raided a boarding house and deported eighteen young adult refugees, as well as their boarding master Daniel Trocmé. Daniel, who was André Trocmé’s cousin, was later murdered in Maidenak concentration camp.
| Not only did the villagers hide Jews but in Le Chambon they practiced
non – cooperation with the Vichy government. Amélie the bellringer
refused to ring the church bell in honour of Marshall Pétain saying the
bell did not belong to the Marshall but to God. The private school set up by
Trocmé and Thies refused to put up a picture of Petain on the wall, or
pledge an oath of allegiance and would not enforce the mandatory
saluting of the flag. |
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To some extent it seems this ‘goodness’ was catching
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After 1943 sheltering Jews on the plateau was the norm. It was a collective and ecumenical effort that involved not just all twelve Protestant parishes but also Darbyists, Swiss Protestants, American Quakers, Evangelicals, Catholics, Jewish organisations, and nonbelievers. Almost the entire population of eight thousand people worked towards saving Jews and other refugees from destruction. They did so at great risk to their families and themselves. Not a single inhabitant of the plateau ever betrayed any of the refugees.
So what was it that motivated these people? And what role did faith play in their actions?
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