LA FEMME DANS LA RESISTANCE – “Women in the Resistance” – a collection of rare testimonies by women who took part in both open and covert struggle against the Nazis through countless acts of bravery throughout the war years. Published by Les Cahiers du Maine Libre (“The Notebooks of Maine Libre”) – the publishing arm of a newspaper that issued documentation on the activities of the Resistance movement at the end of the war. France, June 1945 – first edition. Copy dedicated and signed by Jewish resistance fighter Lucie Aubrac, who was responsible for the bombing of the prison vehicle in which her husband was held, saving his life in what is considered one of the most remarkable Resistance operations of the war. French.
A collection of earliest testimonies compiled immediately after the war, from women who took part in a wide range of resistance activities against the Nazis during the war years in France and its neighboring countries. These women recount their involvement in a variety of resistance operations (“It seems that the work of resisting the tyrant, the invader, has ended… A process of material and moral reconstruction is beginning. Heroic women, courageous women, conscientious women… the secrecy that always shrouded their activity…” (from the introduction). The testimonies paint a vivid and detailed picture of the women’s heroic efforts during the war. Risking their lives daily, they engaged in numerous rescue operations such as forging identification papers and documents, printing “warning leaflets” for Jews ahead of deportations and selections in order to prompt their early escape, participating in the sabotage of railway lines, sending “warning letters” to save those targeted by the Nazis based on extensive intelligence networks in which the women were active. They hid weapons, managed arms depots, secretly supplied food to detainees under the Gestapo’s nose, and include accounts of women narrowly escaping Gestapo arrest time and again. Among the testimonies is a detailed account by Mrs. Michelin Pean, who served as an undercover agent in France throughout the four years of occupation, and the testimony of Mrs. Oyon on the horrors of the Ravensbrück women’s camp (“It usually took the prisoners eighteen months to die”), her and her comrades’ struggle to survive, the camp’s daily routine, the Nazis’ calculated effort to break the inmates’ spirits, and the forced labor imposed there. She gives a harrowing report of some 200 women executed in a single day at the camp, among other atrocities. The booklet is accompanied by photographs of female resistance fighters who served at Bergen-Belsen, women caring for survivors, the transport of bodies for burial at Bergen-Belsen, survivors aboard a train en route to Paris after the war, and more.
Lucie Aubrac [1912–2007], born in the city of Mâcon, France. In the 1930s, she worked as a teacher of history and geography. She married Ramón Šimelović, a Jew of Austro-Jewish descent, later known as Raymond Aubrac. Lucie was among the first to join the French Resistance during World War II, and together with her husband and fellow fighters, she helped establish one of the earliest Resistance networks in the city of Lyon. The network focused primarily on sabotage operations and the distribution of underground leaflets, while Lucie used her role as a teacher as cover to pass messages, organize clandestine meetings, and transport weapons and documents. She also played a key role in recruiting young people to the Resistance and to the Free French Forces.
On June 21, 1943, during a secret meeting of French Resistance leaders in Lyon, the Gestapo raided the location (following a betrayal) and arrested Raymond Aubrac along with other leaders, including Jean Moulin. Lucie, who was pregnant at the time, went to Gestapo headquarters in Lyon and presented herself as Raymond’s fiancée. She bravely lied, claiming he was an engineer named “Arnaud, ” and requested permission to marry him before his execution. Incredibly, Klaus Barbie approved the request. The wedding took place in prison in a symbolic and minimal ceremony, attended only by a priest and a few German officers. Shortly after the “wedding, ” on October 21, 1943, Lucie planned and executed—together with fellow Resistance members—a daring armed attack on the Gestapo convoy transporting Raymond and other prisoners. They ambushed the convoy at the entrance to Lyon, killed the German escorts, and freed Raymond. The operation is considered one of the most remarkable and heroic Resistance missions of the entire war. The couple fled to southern France and later to Britain, where they continued their involvement in the struggle. They returned to France after the Liberation in 1944. Following the liberation of Paris, Charles de Gaulle formed an advisory assembly, and Lucie joined as a representative of the Resistance—making her the first woman to sit in a French parliamentary body. She was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 1996. Her heroic wartime actions have been the subject of at least three films and several books.
24 pp. 23 cm. Very good condition.
