(conducted by Mathieu Fraioli on June 5th, 2005)

RESISTANCE

You became a resistance fighter very young. What prompted you to join the resistance movement?

I joined the resistance by force of circumstances. I was 15 years old in 1940 when France lost the war. Things changed very quickly after that. We were in Vichy because the second husband of my mother, who was a doctor of Jewish origin specialized in liver diseases, spent the summer in Vichy and the winter in Paris. Of course, with the start of war we stayed in Vichy. We never went back to Paris, which was in the occupied zone. Vichy was at that moment " free France", at least by name.

In Vichy from the end of 1940, the young members of the PPF (Parti populaire français), who were fascists, began manhandling all people whose ideas differed from their own, which is to say from the Nazis. One evening, coming home with a friend of mine, we heard the sound of a fight. Seven or eight of them were beating up a young Jewish boy. We took his side and fought off the PPF guys. There were fights like this all the time. That’s how I entered the resistance.

One day, with the help of our Cusset high school chemistry teacher, we made a bomb and blew up the PPF headquarters in Vichy. This was a big scandal. They knew we were responsible, but were never been able to prove it. They nevertheless deported us to the provinces. I was sent to Ussel, in Corrèze, under house arrest where I stayed from 1941 until the end of December 1942. Since I was under 18, my mother stayed with me in Ussel. I had to report every two days to the police station to signal my presence by signing a register. The Ussel police commissioner was in fact the leader of the resistance of that region. He was in charge of clandestine operations.

What did you do in the resistance?

Being only 17 years old, I only did fund transfers. The English parachuted gold pieces and forged banknotes over Ussel and we took them to resistance fighters. I was a go-between. That’s all I could do.

What did you think of the Pétain government and so-called “free France” ?

We listened to English radio every day. They were absolutely against Pétain and those PPF bastards. The Pétain regime was a fascist regime. Pétain sold out France to the Nazis!

How were you arrested?

The Germans, acting on the denunciations of pro-fascists in the area arrested the Ussel police commissioner. And of course, they came looking for me. So I fled to Paris. A member of the PPF, who knew me from Vichy, saw me in Paris with friends and reported me to the police. I was arrested by police inspector Langlais in the Gare de Lyon (Paris) at the beginning of January 1943 while I was boarding the train for Spain to be able to join England, General de Gaulle and the Free French Forces.

I was questioned by the Gestapo which referred me to French justice as an inconsequential case. They then incarcerated me in the prison of La Santé. I had a visit from inspector Langlais who came to tell me: “I’m sorry, I did not know that you were in the resistance. I thought that you were a gold trafficker. You were wanted for gold trafficking”. I brought money to the resistance fighters in the Maquis.

I was transferred back to Vichy and then to the camp of Fort Barraux. There, we set up a big movement to escape the old military fortress. We dug a passage under the walls which led us outside. During our escape, the guards fired at us during the night.  The following morning, the Germans came and deported us to Buchenwald in Germany.

DEPORTATION TO GERMANY: CONCENTRATION CAMP OF BUCHENWALD

How did your deportation to Germany take place?

The Germans put us on a train. Luckily, it was not a livestock train. It was made up of 3rd class wagons (simple wagons with wooden seats). We were 12 in a compartment, six on each side. Let’s just say it was a tight fit. It took 12 days to get to Buchenwald, the only food being a loaf of bread for the lot of us. It wasn’t great. When we pulled into a station, we could drink, but there was no food for us..

What memories do you have of your arrival at the camp of Buchenwald?

We arrived at Buchenwald at the beginning of July 1944 on a nice sunny day. It felt like a vacation train. There were shacks painted in green, showers, and a cinema. It felt almost joyful, I must say, compared to the prison of La Santé and the camp of Fort Barraux. We went through a medical exam, all of which you can read in my memoirs. After that, things turned bad. Buchenwald was not an extermination camp, but a labour camp where they made us work in stone quarries and on the railway.

What was the daily routine of the camp?

Waking at 4 am, call at 5 am, outside at 5:30 and 12 hours of work, breaking stones or working on the railway. Our assignment to shacks was a bit disorganized. There was a great mix of nationalities and categories of prisoners. There were German political prisoners, Russian soldiers, etc. The English and Americans were apart. Everybody was treated the same. In every shack, there was a "kapo", German of course, who was generally a non-political prisoner serving the SS. The German writer, Eric Maria Remarque, wrote a book, “Spark of Life”, which describes very well the concentration camp life we knew in Buchenwald.

How did the situation evolve in the camp?

Everything degenerated with Germany’s difficulties during the war. At first, we had the impression of a well-run camp. Then, rations diminished because the Germans did not have enough food for themselves. We worked 12 hours or even 16 hours a day and stayed standing in place during 3 or 4 hours during roll call. The vacation was over. The prisoners began dying from hunger …

How important was the resistance in the camp? How was it organized?

Resistance began after the bombing of the camp by the English and Americans on August 8th, 1944. They bombed the barracks occupied by SS troops. No bomb fell in the camp. They all fell on barracks and plants. Buchenwald had plants. I never personally worked in them, but there were transported convicts who worked in them. After the bombing, I went out with a guy thinking to get away. We pretended to carry a wounded German soldier. We crossed the barriers and found ourselves in the countryside carrying this German soldier who had died. We told ourselves: “What do we do? Do we go back?” We looked at ourselves: we were wearing numbered white and blue striped uniforms and had shaven heads. We told ourselves we had no hope of getting away. We went back to the camp, which was fortunate since all the prisoners caught outside were executed.

During the bombing, we had collected the weapons of killed German soldiers and hid them. This is when resistance got organized. The communists, mostly Frenchmen arrested and deported long before ourselves, had already formed a small core. Thanks to the weapons, we began to feel hopeful and then news reached us that the war was going bad for the Germans. That’s how we had the patience to wait for the big day.

How was the camp liberated?

The big day arrived when the Russian and American armies entered Germany. From the first days of April 1944, the Germans wanted to clear out the camp of all prisoners. They shot all the Russian prisoners, as well as the American and English soldiers. They began forming columns and getting everybody to march. We took up positions in the camp and began our small war of resistance. The Germans did not succeed in evicting us. This was a real fight.

Knowing that the 1st American Army was only about 4 to 5 km from the camp, we attacked the guards on April 11th, 1945. We then took over the tower [at the entrance of the camp] which gave us all tremendous joy. We had been without food for 10 days. The Germans wanted to force us out by starvation. There was no food coming in.

The Americans arrived shortly afterwards. We could finally eat something. They threw us of packets of cigarettes. The first cigarette I smoked made me intoxicated. We were in a pitiful state. When I was arrested in Paris, I weighed 80 kilograms, when I came back from Buchenwald to France, after three weeks of solid food – the three weeks it took to come back - I weighed 52 kilograms. I had lost 28 kilograms.

How was your return to France?

As war had not ended yet, we stayed in the camp to organize our return. The camp was liberated on April 11th and I came back to Paris on May 8th, VE-day. The capital was in the most senseless disorder. I stopped at the hotel Lutetia, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, that is to say just a few steps away from our house on rue des Saints-Pères. As it happened, my mother was waiting for me at the hotel. She had heard of the return of the camp prisoners.

In Paris, my mother and I slept on newspapers. The Germans had taken away all our furniture after the arrest and deportation in Auschwitz of my Jewish stepfather. They arrested him in Vichy in 1943 after I ran away from Ussel. By searching the home of my stepfather where they thought they’d find me, they found my revolver behind a picture.

The period after the war was very hard. Happily, the resistance helped a lot by providing me with funds and finding me of job. I wrote articles for the newspaper Combat in Nuremberg and I took up my studies again. The resistance sent me to Megève for two months to recuperate from Buchenwald.

Had you heard about the concentration camps and about what took place in them before your deportation there?

Never.

TRIAL OF NUREMBERG

You were correspondent for the newspaper Combat during the trial of Nuremberg where the main protagonists of the Nazi regime still living were being judged. What did you feel when confronted with these war criminals?

I felt a great contentment. Unfortunately, my health not being very good, I could only remain two weeks at the trial. During this period, I wrote three articles.

What did you find of interest in the trial?

It was a trial like any other. There were depositions and all these German lawyers who tried to defend them.

Did the verdict returned by the court sentencing the accused to death or long jail sentences satisfy you?

I found this very fair. It was the contentment that comes from knowing they would finally pay for their crimes.

EUROPE

After living through the Second World War and then the whole edification of Europe begun in 1957 with the signature of the Treaty of Rome, are you satisfied by the way the European Union is evolving?

Absolutely not. I find that the EU is losing too much time. European construction began almost 50 years ago and I have the impression it’s still at the beginning. Frankly, we had the impression in 1957 that it was a question, maybe not of days or months, but at the most of two or three years. Forty-eight years later, I have the impression that not enough progress has been made.

The enlargement of Europe in the East with the accession of 10 new members in May, 2004 was badly perceived by the population of numerous member States of the EU. Do you consider this inclusion to be a mistake?

It is a good thing. Their entrance still happened a bit early, since the Europe of 15 still has a tremendous number of things to accomplish. This complicates things a bit. On the other hand, for these 10 new countries, it is a considerable event, a very good thing.

What do you think of the vote of the French and the Dutch who rejected the European Constitution as a whole?

I would have voted no. I find that this constitution is not well made. There’s still a tremendous number of things to be made or changed.

How would you like the European Union to evolve?

I would like it to evolve towards a federal Europe following the example of the United States, even if this country could still stand improvement. It’s a difficult thing to do. The United States had the advantage of speaking the same language, English, whereas we have a tower of Babel with the Germans, the French, the Italians, the English, etc. I really believe in it. We need to be patient and not be afraid to face our problems. Europe is our only hope of salvation. Only a united Europe will be able to stand up to Islam.

LITHUANIA

For the Russians, May 9th represents a day of victory, while for the Lithuanians it is the beginning of more than 45 years of Soviet occupation, with the consequences we know. Do you think it’s imperative for Russia, following the example of the German leaders after the Second World War and the French, after Vichy, to apologize for the occupation and oppression of Baltic countries?

Yes, I think it is absolutely imperative for the Russian government to apologize, but it will never happen as it is of the opinion that the occupation of Lithuania was in the normal course of events.

You were in Lithuania on May 1st, 2004 during its entrance in the European Union. What do you remember of this trip to Lithuania?

A tremendous joy! I was extremely pleased to be there at that particular time. Lithuania only became really free again by joining the European Union. I am sure that it will progress very fast on the way to economic recovery, much faster than Hungary and Romania. I was very emotional and happy finding my family again, visiting the tomb of my father, Jokubas Šernas, in the graveyard of Radviliškis, and the house of the signatories.

Concentration camp of Buchenwald (Germany)
Labour camp, from July 1937 until April 1945
Estimated number of prisoners: 250,000
Estimated casualties: 56,000

Chronology of events

 10 May, 1940: Western German Offensive against Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France.

 18 June, 1940: General de Gaulle makes his appeal of June 18th and creates a French government in exile in Great Britain. This speech is a call to resistance for the French people who were defeated, then occupied by Nazi Germany; it is also a reaction to the suing for armistice by Pétain.

 25 June, 1940: France signs an armistice with Germany six weeks after the invasion which has caused about 100,000 deaths. In accordance with the terms of this treaty, the North of France falls directly under German occupation. The South of France remains unoccupied and is governed by a French administration led by Marshal Philippe Pétain, who sets up a new political regime, abolishing the Republic. The regime of Pétain sets up its capital in the city of Vichy. Officially neutral, the France of Vichy collaborates in fact closely with Germany. French campaign.

 8 May, 1945: Germany capitulates unconditionally to the Allies.

English translation by Benoît A. Racine with my sincere thanks.  Foxfire

Laikas Article July 2005