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A Protestant town's 'conspiracy of good' in Vichy France
As the French education ministry revisits Holocaust curricula this month, advocates say Chambon-sur-Lignon's story would be 'revolutionary' for schoolchildren.
posted May 14, 2008 at 8:05 am EDT
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Save the popular film "Schindler's List," little attention has been given to Europe's rescuers. Jewish survivors haven't wanted the Holocaust itself reduced in scope. French rescuers were often lumped into the resistance. Yet fighting Nazis often had little to do with saving one's Jewish neighbors.
Tale muffled amid secularism
Perhaps one reason Chambon's response has not been more widely heralded, say those who know it, is that, for France, it has an awkward religious foundation.
In today's aggressively secular France, the tradition here that the Gospels have practical meaning in the face of evil often doesn't sit well. It was not until the 1980s that many Chambonnais shared their deeds – and then only when prodded by outsiders. Just as the central role of devout southern black churches in the US civil rights movement was airbrushed out of history classes – as Pulitzer Prize-winner Taylor Branch chronicles – so, too, France's official secularism, or laïcité, which rules out public discussion of faith, had a similar effect.
"I can't tell you how revolutionary it would be to get this story into French schools," says Sauvage, who was born here in 1944 to Jewish parents who met in Paris, fled south to Marseilles, then found refuge in Chambon. "A sympathetic view of religious people acting well to rescue Jews at that time is not something teachers in France easily gravitate towards."
Rooted in Huguenot tradition
Chambon has unusual roots as a town. Most locals are Huguenot descendents – Protestants driven out of Catholic France in the 17th century. Those not fleeing or sent to hard labor hid in the mountains, living off their wits, and living inside the Bible. They were deeply devout and studied Scriptures daily. They identified with the persecuted children of Israel, developed powerful narratives based on the parable of the Good Samaritan, of sanctuary, of the Pauline teaching that "faith without works is dead," and they retained strong skepticism of worldly authority.
These traditions were quite alive when France agreed in 1940 to rule its southern half under Nazi policies.
"The town gave sanctuary to Spanish civil war refugees, to orphans from nearby coal mining towns, to pacifists from Germany," says Catherine Aubin, a historian in Paris related to the Trocme family of Chambon. "The traditions of the Huguenots were always strong. They didn't try to convert people, they were just devout." The observance of Jewish high holy days took place, albeit in secret.
By 1942, Jews from all over Europe were arriving. They were accepted without question.
Some came for several weeks and slept on floors; others stayed on. "In four years, not a single ... Jew was exposed or denounced. Not one. That's incredible," says Henry.
"What was remarkable about Chambon is that nobody during four or five years asked me the question, are you or are you not Jewish?," notes Joseph Atlas a Jewish refugee who got a math degree here. "I was a young refugee of Polish origin, a foreigner, sheltered by a Protestant community."
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