Mme. Laurence Baracetta Coz, a former classmate of my mother’s (neither remembered the other) burst into tears and couldn’t stop talking about how happy she was to reconnect with my mother after so many years and how proud she was of the villagers who hid the Jewish families during the war. She was grateful for my mother’s letter and quest since she now understood more about the town and was proud of its history in the face of the horror wrought by the Holocaust.
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There were other stories that were confirmed or enhanced. Mme. Antoinette Francou Schultz distinctly remembered our family’s fake name, “Thibault,” which they had taken in 1943 when they went into deeper hiding on the farm, because “it wasn’t a name from our region.”
Others remembered the time my grandfather was stopped by three different German patrols on the same day and was not arrested, and about the hostages taken (and later released) in reprisal for a Resistance killing of two German soldiers the day before.
All of these apparently long-withheld memories were shared during the reception and at later at homes of the various members of “La Vielle Garde.” There were disagreements about how many hostages were taken by the Germans and general chuckling over the occasional banality of the occupiers.
In one somewhat amusing story, the village leaders actually convinced their German occupiers that the killings were done by German deserters, not French townspeople, as the French townspeople “would never have abandoned their bicycles and clothing near the killings.”
Sometimes the meetings were less humorous and much more resoundingly personal. As I shared the photo of the tanks on the streets of Corps in 1944, I was stunned when Mme. Etiennette Combe Mei said that she was the young girl handing gladioli flowers to the American GIs in the tanks.
The reception accorded my mother by the villagers was heartwarming. She was made to feel that she remained, after all this time, a part of the village and its history.
What was most impressive was the new dialogue and understanding of what the town’s inhabitants had done to protect Jewish families during the war. I was moved by the stories of selfless and potentially life-endangering efforts that the town’s inhabitants had undertaken in order protect Jews.
Our experience seemed to echo the stories in Caroline Moorehead’s Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France, which described how the inhabitants of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, another small village, saved several hundred people (Jews and others) in the Haute Loire region and were honored by Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among Nations.”
While the citizens of Corps never received the same attention and honors, their story resonated intensely because, had they been any less brave, it is likely that my two siblings, my son, my daughter, my two nephews, and I would not be alive today. For everything tragic that we hear, there are probably hundreds if not thousands of stories about courageous acts of defiance and humanity across France and Europe, like those of the people of Corps, that have never been told.
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Given recent ethnically driven violence – in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Gaza – and in light of the recurring anti-Semitism prevalent in France and other parts of Europe, stories of human self-sacrifice, courage, tolerance, and indeed survival seem more important than ever.
Despite the tremendous amount of hate, fear, distrust, and anger in the world, we need to elevate the stories of real decency and civility, of humanity, of “liberté, égalité, fraternité.
We need to share these personal and verifiably true stories of heroism wherever they occur. We need to inspire ourselves to accept and protect our fellow human beings –regardless of race, religion, or other differences – because this is how you stop hate; this is what sets us apart and makes us truly human.
