Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a French village that saved thousands of French Jews during the Holocaust and was long ago recognized by Yad Vashem. It’s finally being recognized by the French.
A French village credited with saving 3,000 Jews from the Holocaust has received its long overdue state salute.
Chambon-sur-Lignon, its heroism largely unknown or ignored in France for many years after World War II, was admitted to the state memorial for national heroes Thursday.
French President Jacques Chirac, in an elaborate ceremony at the Pantheon in Paris, unveiled a plaque honoring the village and 2,739 French individuals who risked all to save Jews from 1940 to 1944, Britain’s Independent reported.
It does not surprise me that the French have ignored the heroism of this Protestant village. It makes the rest of the country look bad.
Le Chambon -sur-Lignon is a Protestant village in Haute-Loire in southern France. During World War II, it became a haven for Jews fleeing from the Nazis and their French collaborators.
The Chambonais hid Jews in their homes, sometimes for as long as four years, provided them with forged I.D. and ration cards, and helped them over the border to safety in Switzerland. With their history of persecution as a religious minority in Catholic France, empathy for Jews as the people of the Old Testament, and the powerful leadership and example of their pastor and his wife, Andre and Magda Trocme, the people of Chambon acted on their conviction that it was their duty to help their “neighbors” in need.
The Chambonais rejected any labeling of their behavior as heroic. They said: “Things had to be done and we happened to be there to do them. It was the most natural thing in the world to help these people.” After the round- up and deportation of Jews in Paris in July 1942, Pastor Trocme had delivered a sermon to his parishioners, “The Christian Church should drop to its knees and beg pardon of God for its present incapacity and cowardice.”
The American Friends (Quakers) and other Protestant organizations provided assistance to Chambon to set up homes for children whose parents had been deported. The head of one of these homes was Daniel Trocme, the young cousin of Pastor Trocme. In June 1943 he and “his” children were arrested and deported to the East. Daniel Trocme died in Majdanek.
Yep. Makes the Vichy collaborators look very, very bad. No wonder France ignored its own heroes. Unless it’s also the Hueguenot thing.