June 1944: Killing a Kübelwagen - version 5

    One story my grandfather told more than once was about the non-commissioned officer in his Maquis unit who, through a spectacular bit of sharpshooting, shot the driver of a Kübelwagen (German equivalent to a jeep) that contained the commanding officer of a German unit. The car wrecked, killing all three men inside.  

    I have two versions of the story from my grandfather (from 30 and 44 years after the events), one from the son of his commanding officer (written in 1955), and one from a non-fiction book. You can read all four versions here.

    A couple of days ago, I found what is very likely a fifth version.  One that contains the names of the Germans killed in the wreck.  Certain details match up - The date (June 28, 1944), the fact that there was a German convoy, and that the German commander was killed when the car was destroyed, and the location (Ourches valley, on the way to La Rochette-sur-Crest).  But other details vary, like the weapons used (gun, hand grenade, sticky bomb), and the vehicles used. But, here it is, written by Nick Beale:

Obltn. Stefan Ulrich, in La Rochette, 2 km S Ourches, (no time or cause stated).Uffz. Aloysius Hennecke, at 10.00 hrs. in La Rochette, multiple injuries from an “adhesive charge” (a Gammon Grenade?).Ogefr. Werner Gaudigs, in La Rochette (no time or cause stated).

That three men of a motorised unit were killed and that a “sticky bomb” was involved suggests an attack on a vehicle or vehicles and Resistance historian Joseph La Picirella has written that a convoy of 10 trucks from Valence, each carrying a dozen men, was attacked by the Maquis en route to La Rochette-sur-Crest. He says that the vehicle carrying the detachment commander was destroyed and the bodies of the occupants were taken to the house of the mayor. This account seems to fit what is known of the deaths of Gaudigs, Hennecke and Ulrich (whose rank may mark him as the commander of the operation). The mayor of La Rochette, Paul Baude, later certified, “that on the 28th of last June the old village of the commune was burned by the Germans by means of incendiary bombs without the inhabitants being able to remove their furniture”.

    I've found independent verification of what happened to the bodies (taken to La Rochette mayor's house, and the reprisals). Now I need to find Joseph La Picirella's writings.  Pretty cool, to find more verification!

All cemeteries in France are publicly-owned

Cimetière de Ourches

    Well, not private family cemeteries, but all of the others. 

   Every once in a while, I discover a significant cultural difference between the USA and France that catches me off guard.  This is one of them.

    All cemeteries, even ones that historically belonged to the churches, including those in attached church yards, are owned and maintained by the municipalities.

    This has been true in France since the 1905 law separating church and state, which transferred ownership and maintenance of cemeteries to the towns and cities.  This was to ensure that cemeteries remain secular, and that no one would ever be denied burial due to their religion.  Churches were granted exceptions to the law, allowing them to use cemeteries (i.e., public spaces) for religious purposes.

    It's a little weird to me - evidently, most USA-ian cemeteries are municipal, too, but plenty are owned by the churches, particularly when the cemetery is in the attached churchyard.  There has never been a time in my life in which Americans wouldn't totally lose their shit if their local church cemetery were confiscated and given to the town.   So that makes me wonder how the French populace responded back in 1905.  Don't get me wrong - I have no issue with how the French administer their cemeteries - it even seems like it might be a good idea, particularly in a country with centuries of historical conflict between catholics and protestants. It's just not what I'm accustomed to.

        So, the walled cemetery in Ourches, where my grandfather stood guard for a night in June of 1944 (panicking because he couldn't remember how to arm his gammon grenade), had TWO gates, one for Protestants and one for Catholics.   

    I had assumed it belonged to a nearby Catholic church, Église Saint Didier, which is a few blocks away. Evidently, the church dates to medieval times, so I figured the land that the cemetery sits on had belonged to the church, and that over time, the land between the two was sold, hence the separation in location.   So I had called it "Cemetery Saint Didier." But something bothered me about that: the cemetery doesn't seem to have an official name (it's just labeled "cimetière" on Google Maps, and none of my internet or AI-assisted searches gave it a name). So I did some digging (the results of which are above), and found out that "Cimetière de Ourches" is more probably correct.

Glad I looked it up. :-)

1944-1947: The Élise Auvergne dossier

TLDR: If you don't want my commentary, just read the sections in courier text - those are the historical sources. You'll get the story, just with less context.

    There are two kinds of stories from my grandparents' life during WW2 - ones they didn't talk about because it was just too painful, and ones they talked about freely.

    The murder of Madame Auvergne - their landlady/babysitter/protector/friend - happens to fall between the categories - it was a very painful and terrifying episode in their life, but they talked about it freely.

    Perhaps it's because it wasn't done to them by a faceless evil enemy occupier; instead it was committed by an ally, against friends of theirs. Mrs. Auvergne liked to flirt with men in uniform (including Wehrmacht uniforms), and was a supporter of the collaborationist Vichy government, but she had also sheltered and protected my grandparents and aunt, and kept their secrets. But she was innocent of any crime.

    Her murder was an act of not-so-friendly fire, part of the reckoning France went through after the war, when rage and a national need for revenge temporarily overcame the rule of law. Even my grandpa was swept up in it, when, in a case of mistaken identity, he was arrested without evidence and held for 3 days before being released.

    The murderer was a man named Jacques Faure, and he was a résistant who served in my grandfather's own maquis unit, and was also someone Grandpa Arthur had considered a friend.  No wonder Grandpa was angry.

    I've written about the event before, but new information came to light when a historian friend in France sent me a bundle of letters from the Drôme Department archives, all written in the 1940s, when the crime was still recent, and they include a description from someone who was there.

    Yes, you read that right. I now have eyewitness testimony. I gasped aloud when I finished translating it, and I imagine that this is how a police detective must feel when she breaks a case.  

    So here is everything I know, in order. Red text indicates details you should remember.

Epitaphs:

Élise AUVERGNE, 46 years, died on 16 July 1944, cowardly murdered
Colette CHAVARENT, 9 years, died on 16 July 1944, cowardly murdered    

    Mrs. Auvergne and her niece are buried in a cemetery in Beaumont-lès-Valence.  I don't know the exact date they were buried, or when the gravestones were placed, but it seems likely that they are the earliest source of information.

Letter 1 - 19 Mar 1945 (new info):

    I saw Mr. Méjean yesterday. He passed a word to Colonel Descours regarding the matter in which you gave testimony. He’s confident there will be no consequences.

--ROUX, Léon to Captain Jean PLANAS

    I suppose this may be referring to something unrelated, and not to the murders, but either way, it had never occurred to me that Faure's actions might have impacted Grandpa's commanding officer. I mean, of course the authorities would want to know if Faure had acted alone, or if he'd been carrying out his commander's orders.

Letter 2 - 21 Feb 1947 (new info):

    RE: Certification of Captain Jean PLANAS

Dr. Planas

    Recently, when I had an X-ray at your place, I wanted to ask you for a written statement, and since you had a lot of people there that day, I completely forgot about it; in a nutshell, I'll explain what it's about. It's about the Jacques Faure affair.

    I want to tell you that this individual is still in Beaumont. So we would need written testimony on stamped paper testifying on your role when a certain Jacques Faure acted as someone ordered to assassinate my wife and my little niece Chavarent. This would be useful to us to file a petition to the Minister of Justice for a review of the trial.

    Enclosed you will find a stamped sheet of paper for the testimony and a stamp for the return.

    I look forward to your response. Please accept, Mr. Planas, my sincere gratitude.

--AUVERGNE, Léon to Jean PLANAS

    I took notice when I saw the signature on this letter, because Léon Auvergne was Mrs. Auvergne's husband.   But what does the letter tell me?  I need to distinguish between facts and implications. 

    The facts:

•     Mr. Auvergne was Dr. Planas's patient.
•     The tone of the letter was polite, even kind of chatty.
•     Three years after his wife's death, he was trying to have the case reopened, hoping to bring her murderer to justice.
•     Jacques Faure was from Beaumont-lès-Valence and was still living there. 

    The implications:

• The chatty tone suggests that Mr. Auvergne didn't blame Dr. Planas for his wife's death.  
• Because the Auvergnes were patients of Dr. Planas, the events probably horrified him, that a soldier under his command gunned down people he cared for in his medical practice.

    According to my grandfather, most people (including the Auvergnes) had been supporters of the collaborative Vichy government early in the war. However, by the summer of 1944, Vichy had become tremendously unpopular, and people who still supported them would have been distrusted.

    I grew up in a small town like Beaumont-lès-Valence, where everyone knows everyone, and gossip can and does run rampant, and I must imagine that the townspeople, even if they disagreed with the Auvergne's political beliefs, would have been hostile towards a man who drunkenly gunned down a little girl.

Planas deposition handwritten on back of letter 2 (date unclear):

I, the undersigned, Dr. Jean Planas, physician residing at Étoile, former captain attached to the 2nd Battalion, Drôme Company, hereby attest that Private Jacques Faure, who belonged to the 3rd section of the Company, was on leave on July 16, 1944. That during the attack on Madame Auvergne and her niece Chavarent, he acted spontaneously contrary to all requisitions and references: upon his return to the Company, on the morning of the 17th, Jacques Faure was taken prisoner. He was taken under arms and transferred to the headquarters to be tried there.

    Dr. Planas's handwriting was difficult to read, so I can't be entirely sure that my transcription/translation is perfectly accurate, but I think that I've captured the gist. The only new info is that Faure had been in the third section (of the 4th Company, 2nd Battalion, Drôme FFI), and that he returned to HQ on July 17th.

Letter 3 - 3 Mar 1947 (new info):

Dear Doctor Planas,

    Please excuse the delay in responding to your letter of the 25th, caused by the bad weather; which left us completely cut off from mail service for three days. Let me first tell you that I am particularly pleased with the result of my medical analysis, because it worries me greatly. 

   Now I am writing again regarding my statement about the Jacques Faure case. I must tell you that he is still here, but it seems they are planning to leave because they have rented out their house and land.

    So, on the day of July 14, 1944, he came to Beaumont, to the property of Mr. Leillaret. He had a minor altercation with several boules players, especially with Mr. Jean Bellon, whose son was in the Resistance. And on July 16, 1944, he reappeared again in Beaumont and presented himself at the home of Mr. Jean Bellon, with the clear intention of killing him, since he had a revolver in his hands. Fortunately for them, they were having a family meal — a child found it very disturbing. He then went to the Les Faures neighborhood, to my home, on July 16, 1944, at 6:30 p.m., and opened fire on the whole family who were seated outside the house, having a small family snack.

--AUVERGNE, Léon to Jean PLANAS

    This letter really reveals a lot of new information:  

• The Faures were leaving Beaumont, which I believe is strong evidence that the town had become a hostile place for Jacques.
• Mr. Auvergne was having health issues.
• Jacques Faure was absent from 4th company HQ from July 14-17.
• On Bastille Day, Faure appeared in Beaumont-lès-Valence, and got into fights with the locals. He then disappears from view for two days.
• Jacques Faure shows up at the Bellon home on July 16 and threatens him with a handgun, but a crying child deters Jacques who fled the scene.
• He found the Auvergnes eating outside, and opened fire on them at 6:30pm.  

    Léon Auvergne's birthday was July 17, 1891, so his wife was murdered the day before his 53 birthday (a not very happy birthday for the poor man), and he was not quite 56 years old at the time the letter was written.

    The cottage where my grandparents lived was very nearby, which meant that if my grandmother and aunt were home, they would have heard the gunshots and screams.

    I wish I knew what happened next. Did Jacques Faure flee after he opened fire? Did someone disarm him? Did gendarmes catch him and bring him to 4th Company headquarters?  Did Jacques know what he'd done?

History of the 4th Company - 1955:

Three tragic episodes disrupted the shaping of our Company: June 12, a member of the 3rd Section stole from Warrant Officer LABROSSE a Colt 45, a US Navy weapon, and went to shoot a milice volunteer in Beaumont.  Unfortunately, his lack of composure made him shoot down the wife and daughter of this sinister individual who came between our comrade and his target....

--Dr. Michel PLANAS 

    Michel Planas was a medical student in the summer of 1944.  He was Dr. Jean Planas's younger son, and he served under his father as the head of the 4th Company medical division. In 1955, after his father's death, he wrote a 45-page history of the 4th Company that covers the summer of 1944.

    His description of the murders is very brief, and a little vague, almost as if the Dr. Planas (the younger) wanted to report as few details as possible, yet still remain true to the history. He wrote it 11 years after the events in question, and like my grandfather's account 20 years later, he got the date wrong.

    

    There are other details that aren't quite right - there's no suggestion in the historical sources that I have, that the Auvergnes were ever members of the Milice française - my grandfather would have defended them against such an accusation in an instant.  Grandpa also thought Mrs. Auvergne was the target, not her husband.  The child wasn't their daughter (they had no biological children), rather she was named Colette Chavarent, and was their niece.  These small mistakes makes me think that Michel Planas wasn't really involved in the incident, and didn't know the people, the way his father and my grandfather did.

Yellow Legal Pad Stories - 1974:

Sometime in June, while the 4th Company was still on Ourches, Jacques Faure, one of us, went home without any authorization, got drunk and shot to death Mme. Auvergne. The Auvergnes were the owners of the old house in which my wife and child lived. She had a reputation being a friend of Germans. In fact she belonged to a family of collaborators, but the rumors of her having denounced the FFI’s (the home of one FFI has been burned by Germans who gave 5 minutes to this family to leave the house) were probably only gossip. She knew about me being in the Maquis and my wife has not been investigated. Jacques Faure’s self-handed stupid act resulted in a real danger to many families of FFI, mostly to mine. In addition, inadvertently he shot also her niece, the father of which was a POW in Germany since 1940.

Captain Sanglier was very angry at Jacques. He was dispatched, under armed guard to the headquarters of Major Antoine. From now on Jacques served in a command of desperados, most of whom were killed in extremely dangerous missions, but he survived. 

-- Arthur Lubinski 

Grandpa was about 64 when he wrote this, and except for the date, it matches the other accounts pretty well. Here is what I learned:

• The Auvergnes sheltered the Lubinskis, and despite their support of a fascist government, never betrayed them. I wonder about the nuances in their political beliefs.
• Mrs. Auvergne had a reputation of "being a friend of the Germans." Not sure exactly what that means, but I've always interpreted it as she liked men in uniform.
• Mrs. Auvergne, not her husband, was the target.
• Jacques Faure was sent to battalion (?) headquarters, and then to a group that served dangerous missions. In other words, he was intended to be cannon-fodder.

Arthur Lubinski's Oral Testimony of WW2 Experiences - 1988:

     Yes, in our unit, our company was a man whose brain was not fully developed ... we say retarded.

    And the Germans suspected that someone was in the maquis. And they were right. And they came to Beaumont-lès-Valence and burned the farm. And the whole village, the whole town was trying to guess who denounced them. How the Germans knew it? 

    Well, we lived in a home, you know, this seventeenth-century peasant home with no floor, with one tiny window. We lived over there. It belonged to the Auvergnes; Mr. and Mrs. Auvergne ... They were people from the right and they were … France was divided and they were for Vichy, for the government. Not for de Gaulle in London, but Vichy government which collaborated with Germans. And she was flirting with German officers, etc. And then came the suspicion that she denounced. 

     And my retarded friend, he came through the mountains, came from the mountains and shot down Mrs. Auvergne with a pistol. Killed her. And she was keeping in her hand, her niece, whose father was a prisoner of war in Germany.  And it’s a miracle that this was not Lillian because Lillian was supposed to stay with Madame Auvergne, but at the last moment, Mother left her with someone else. I don’t know what she did. 

     But in any event, almost Lillian was killed and the man returned to the Maquis. He came without permission, he killed someone without permission, and therefore as punishment, he was sent to a company whose duties were dangerous to such an extent that his probability of survival was very remote. And nevertheless he survived. 

     Madame Auvergne did not denounce these people. If she had, she would have denounced me. Roma would have suffered; the child ... It was not she. And after the war – he survived the war – after the war he had to go to a court and was accused of killing someone. And the gendarme – police – came to me, to ask what I knew about it. I said, “Madame Auvergne had wrong political ideas but she did not denounce. I wouldn’t be alive.”   

    But true justice couldn’t exist. He was not ... He was freed … He was not condemned. He didn’t spend time in jail. Very bad. 

    This is an excerpt from the tapes I made of my grandfather when I was 19.  He was 78 at the time, and his memories of the event were still very vivid, nearly 44 years later.  It is also the most complete version of the story.

    His testimony tells us:

• Jacques Faure suffered from some sort of intellectual disability (and this is possibly confirmed by Michel Planas's phrase "lack of composure"). Grandpa said he had mental retardation, but I don't know the extent of his condition.
• The Auvergnes may have been right-leaning supporters of the Vichy Government and Marshal Pétain, but they kept my family's secrets.
• My grandfather was certain that the Auvergnes hadn't been Gestapo informants (and he had good reason to think so).
• Jacques Faure went AWOL, and used a pistol (and not say a Sten submachine gun, which was very common in the FFI).
• My aunt could well have been killed, because Mrs. Auvergne was supposed to babysit her, but for some reason, my Grandma Roma kept her home, or left her with someone else. That suggests that Roma might not have been home at the time of the murders.
• My grandfather's description closely matched that of both Léon Auvergne, and that of Dr. Jean Planas, plus he knew the people involved very well, so I trust his version of the events.

    It's interesting to see what people knew and when they knew it, as well as how the testimonies differ based on whether the individuals were present or not. I'd love to see the official police reports and court transcripts, but I have no idea if they still exist.

1946: When four letters tell a bittersweet story of post-war life

    TLDR: Because I am nothing if not wordy, verbose, and even garrulous, you can totally skip my commentary and just read the translations of the four letters, which aren't long.  They are in  courier typeface, and the story will emerge, though with less historical and familial context.

An excerpt from the 4th letter in the original French

    When my grandfather demobilized in the fall of 1944, he went to work for an organization called the Vercors Reconstruction Service, where he held several roles: as a civil and structural engineer helping to rebuild and restore buildings damaged in the war (he focused on Valence), as the Valence-area liason to the Vand also as a personal assistant to his former commander, who was in charge of the FFI Social Services (a veterans association of sorts) for the area.

    It is due to this latter position that approximately 50 letters to, from, about, or involving my grandfather ended up in the Drôme Department archives.  These letters tell stories of tragedies, of the struggles to rebuild French life, of searching for jobs and finding food for demobilized maquisards, of court cases for murderers, and of building homes for orphaned children, all while life went on as it must. 

    It's something of a paradox - they were doing such mundane things, yet ... it was fascinating, and in a way, beautiful.  There is something about fighting in a war that turns strangers into family. The 4th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Drôme FFI was no exception.  They may not have been in an airborne division like the famous American 101st, but they became a band of brothers* nonetheless.

    This particular batch of letters all surrounded a man named Lt. Bergougnoux, who was about to be demobilized, and needed a job.  Unlike most letters, which are only one half of a conversation, we have the responses, and they make a story all by themselves.  They also demonstrate why, when it's done well, the epistolary format can be so effective in literature.

    I love it when I come across things like this. It's like finding a diamond ring while building sandcastles on the beach.

    The first two letters were from my grandfather, one to his commanding officer that enclosed another letter that Dr. Planas could send on if he agreed with my my grandfather's suggestion (Grandpa had a habit of doing that - using that same method, he smuggled a letter out of Nazi-occupied Belgium to his brother-in-law in the USA after his first daughter was born in 1940).

January 15, 1946

Doctor PLANAS, Etoile-sur-Rhône

RE: Employment – BERGOUGNOUX.  

4th Company - AL/JD 3063

My Commander,

     Lieutenant BERGOUGNOUX is looking for work, as he will soon be demobilized. I see no possibility of using him in reconstruction, but his situation weighs heavily on my heart.

    I wonder whether he could be usefully employed at the children’s village of Dieulefit. Enclosed, you will find the letter I would like to send to ROUX on this matter. If you find my idea sound, please pass it on, and possibly add a note from yourself.

     Do you see any other ways to assist Lieutenant BERGOUGNOUX?

     Looking forward to your reply, please accept, my commander, my complete dedication.

Enclosure: 1 letter

 

    I had to look up what a children's village was - it was a cross between an orphanage and a foster home, a place for children who could not live at home to be raised in a home-like environment.  After the war, there were many orphaned children, and I assume they were establishing this children's village in response to that. The system is still in use today, but is more focused on at-risk youth.

    This letter reveals a few things about my grandfather. In January 1946, he was still primarily focused on reconstruction work. And despite working full-time and having a wife, a school-aged daughter and a newborn at home, he still made time to help a fellow maquisard find a job.  

    Here is the letter he enclosed, written on the same day:

January 15, 1946

Mr. ROUX, Director of the Children’s Village, Dieulefit

RE: Employment – BERGOUGNOUX  

4th Company - AL/JD 3064

Dear Friend,

     I was very pleased to learn of your appointment as head of the new children’s village in Dieulefit, and I sincerely congratulate you.

     I assume you know Lieutenant BERGOUGNOUX, the very kind and dedicated officer from the F.F.I. Social Services. He will soon be demobilized and is seeking employment. We all have a duty to assist him as much as possible, since his family situation (his wife’s illness) is difficult, and he risks being left without means.

     Lieutenant BERGOUGNOUX holds a degree in literature and has long been devoted to social work.  Couldn’t you consider employing him at the children’s village?

     Awaiting your reply, and thanking you in advance, please accept my dear friend, my best regards.

     In this congratulatory letter, we learn that Mr. Roux (who had been one of Dr. Planas's officers in the 4th company, so my grandfather would have known him well) had been promoted, or at least, given more responsibility. We learned more about Lt. Bergougnoux - he had a sick wife to support, but at the time of the letter, was still working for the FFI Social Services, nearly 18 months after their area had been liberated.  

    Perhaps he wanted to work closer to home due to his wife's illness? Many Drôme FFIs (including my grandfather) were demobilized in September of 1944, and perhaps enough of them had started new lives, that there was no longer enough work for Lt. Bergougnoux to do?  I doubt I'll ever know why, but the man needed a job.  He also had a degree in literature (as an English major, I understand the difficulty in finding jobs in our field), which meant he might have been qualified for the job.

    Dr. Planas must have sent the letter on to Léon Roux, because a few days later, Roux sent a reply:

 

Die, January 18

My dear Lubinsky,

     I have just received your letter outlining the very interesting case of Lt. Bergougnoux.

     I’ve taken careful note of it. You should have written to me three months earlier. Because for the past three months, all our staff have been designated and are aware of their commitment to the Children's Village.

     However, when the Village expands, we will need additional staff. If at that time he is still interested, I will consider him a priority.

     I believe you will have received my letter from yesterday.

     Please accept, my dear Lubinsky, my very cordial greetings.

LRoux

    This brief letter tells us a few things: Grandpa and Roux were in very regular communication, and alas, there was no job for poor Lt. Bergougnoux, at least not yet.   And finally, Léon Roux misspelled my grandfather's name; he spelled it Lubinsky (with a y), which is the Russian spelling, instead of ending it with an i, which is how my very Polish family spelled it.  That seems odd given that Roux was a schoolteacher.  That tells me that either my grandfather didn't bother to correct the misspelling, OR that Roux was a little sloppy, rushed, or both.

    Anyway, a couple of days later, Mr. Roux sent another letter, and compared to the slightly terse tone in his previous note, this one was downright chatty, and observed the social niceties:

Roux L., schoolteacher in Die 

to Mr. Lubinsky in Valence

 

My dear Lubinsky,

     Yesterday, I replied to you very quickly, but I wanted my response to reach you as soon as possible.

     As I told you, I have taken good note of your request regarding Lt. Bergougnoux, but we will only be able to satisfy it once the children's village is operating at full capacity and we increase our staff (which should be in about a year).

     On my end, I'm writing to ask you for a small favor which, I believe, falls under your responsibility. I am the person in charge of the school cooperatives in the department (these are small societies that teachers manage within their schools). 

     In Soyans, the teacher Mr. Seignobos, with great zeal, runs one of these cooperatives, which has bought a printing press and publishes a school newspaper, the well-regarded "Flowers of the Maquis." His school was severely affected during the fighting at Beaufort and Gigors (do you remember that?), and the poor fellow is struggling amidst many difficulties.

     Could the Vercors Aid and Reconstruction Association perhaps help him by asking what would be most useful to him? (The members of these cooperatives are the school children who benefit from all the advantages of the society.)

     For informational purposes, ask Seignobos for some issues of his "Flowers of the Maquis."

     My dear Lubinsky, best regards. My regards to Madame Lubinska (I've remembered the lesson, you see!). And little Sylvie, is she well, and wise?

In Die, Jan 20, 1946

LRoux

    I love this letter.  He reiterates that he'll help Lt. Bergougnoux when he can, but he also asks for a favor from my grandfather: to reach out to a teacher running a school newspaper, to see if there's anything specific the teacher needs.  That tells me that my grandfather handled not just large reconstruction tasks (repairing and restoring damaged buildings), but also smaller tasks, to determine if the damaged schools needed anything immediate to operate.

    I love the reference to the battle of Gigors/Beaufort, which he used as a personal reference they would both understand, which shows they were still a band of brothers.  For what it's worth, I have a firsthand account of my grandfather's experiences in that battle, and it was terrifying. 

    I love the name of the school newspaper, Flowers of the Maquis ("Fleurs du Maquis"), and I love the glimpse into the education system, and how they combined resource-sharing (in a world of post-war shortages) with school clubs.  

    I love the irony of Mr. Roux mentioning an off-stage lesson in Polish naming conventions, calling my grandmother Madame Lubinska, which is THE most proper and formal way to refer to her, while simultaneously misspelling my grandfather's name.  That tells me that Grandpa probably DID try to explain how to spell his name, and Mr. Roux, out of habit, continued spelling it wrong anyway.

    I didn't understand Polish naming conventions myself, so I had to look it up: in Polish, the -ski suffix (and -ska is simply the feminine version) roughly translates to "from," or "of," and was used with place names.  So Arthur Lubinski meant "Arthur from Lubin" (Lubin is a town in southwestern Poland, about 140 miles east of Dresden, Germany).  Using -ska seems to be considered archaic today, and I think it might have been a little old-fashioned, even back in 1946.

    And finally, I adore the reference to "little Sylvie, is she well and wise?" That's a reference to my grandfather's newborn daughter, and it shows that Roux was close enough to my grandfather to not only know he had a new baby at home, but also that he knew the baby's name.  

    The reference is especially dear to me for another reason:  Sylvie is my mother (though she goes by her middle name, Jackie).  She would have been about six weeks old at the time. 

* Stephen A. Ambrose wrote a book about the American 101st Airborne Division called Band of Brothers, (he took the title from Shakespeare's Henry V; the full quote is, "From this day to the ending of the World / we in it shall be remembered / we few, we happy few, / we band of brothers."

1940s: Deciphering 80-year-old "immaculate and illegible" handwriting ...in French

     A couple of years ago, a historian friend in France went to the Drôme Department Archives, and photographed about 50 pages of correspondence that were by, about, to, or involving my grandfather. More than half of the pages were handwritten, so I went all ostrich-like for a couple of years, because reading 80-year-old cursive handwriting is hard work, but reading it in a foreign language is 10 times more difficult.

    Procrastinating had a silver lining, though - transcription tools have improved massively in the last two years, and I took advantage of AI to create the initial transcriptions. Then I did a stare and compare to ensure the transcript was correct (despite the improvements, AI does make mistakes, even with the best handwriting).  That worked well for four of the five correspondents (click to enlarge the samples):

The school teacher:

    No matter what country someone is from, a prerequisite for being a school teacher, is having excellent handwriting, and this guy's was among the best I've ever seen.  Seriously, his handwriting could be turned into a font - I'd call it Headmaster Cursive.

The police officer:

    His handwriting is actually pretty neat and easier to read (most of the time) than my grandfather's.  He also leaves a lot of white space between lines, which improves the accuracy of the AI transcription.  But, there is an unfortunate side effect of such neat writing - it exposes the fact that the guy made an unfortunate number of errors in capitalization, punctuation, and grammar. The pattern of errors the spell-checker flagged was completely different from everyone else - it wanted to correct practically every verb tense, for example, and he didn't bother with diacritical marks much.  This isn't to say he was a poor writer, exactly - his writing was clear and easy to understand, and it translated nicely.   

The farmer:

    This guy's writing was also reasonably neat, but very slanty with lots of flourishes. He was the oldest of the authors here; he was born in 1891; it may have been a generational style difference.  His writing also didn't seem to have many errors.

The engineer (my grandfather):

    Grandpa's handwriting is pretty average, neither particularly good nor bad. I'm used to it, so it's one of the easiest for me to read, even though it's actually the second messiest of the batch.  

The doctor (and commander)

The handwriting in black within the square stamp, and
the word, "Suisse" is actually my grandfather's. 

   At a glance, his penmanship doesn't seem so bad, but it is an unusually neat sample of his writing. It says (with clear words in blue, unclear words in brackets): 

"[lury/hevy] cher Lubinski,
Quel est actuellement l’organisme
chargé [ou/du] placement [on/des] enfants [eu/de]
[France/Frcine]?

    You may or may not be able to tell at a glance, but the doctor's handwriting is by far the worst.  Seriously, we all know the jokes about doctors' handwriting, but I wouldn't have expected it to be true across centuries (ok, only 80 years) and cultures.  Speaking of doctor jokes, here's one:

Hmmmm... leaning toward the 2nd one down,
but the 4th one is also a candidate.

 

    Here's a more typical sample of his writing:

    I got:

[recevori] [pecconuel/personnel] [le] [depau/dépôt/pefau] des [fancors/Français].

[fauell/Veuillez] [poscuilor/présenter] un [horuenp/bonjour] à  

Madame Lubinska et [?/aux]  

à [leor/tous] amical [forevelles/souvenir]

[signature]

    So yeah, immaculate and illegible is about right. 

1945: Arthur's Bicycles

French bicycle troops making their way to the front, 1939 
Source: The Atlantic

    I've been working through about 50 pages of correspondence that involve my grandfather.  The letters had been in his commanding officer's files, but are now located in the Drôme Department archives in France. These letters are a lot of fun to read; it's like a peek into their lives in the immediate aftermath of WW2.  

    Anyway, I discovered a bicycle in one of the letters:  

P.S.: When will you come and get the bicycle that ROUX abandoned? If we delay, someone might steal it one day.

--Arthur Lubinski to Louis Robin, 9 February 1945

    Louis Robin was a local butcher who served in the same maquis unit as my grandfather, and after demobilizing, Mr. Robin helped to coordinate some of the efforts of the maquis food cooperatives. It makes sense - as a butcher, he had easier access to food and distribution channels.  He also served in the same section of the same Maquis company as my grandfather, an "SHR" group that supported all the different platoons and groups within the unit.  Léon Roux was a school teacher who seemed to know everyone in the area and had been an officer in the same Maquis unit, someone else my grandfather would have known well.

    Grandpa Arthur must have reached out to Mr. Roux about the bike, because I found another mention in letter dated a few weeks later:

     As agreed, I sent the bicycle to Mr. DRAGON last Monday.

--Léon Roux to Arthur Lubinski, 21 March 1945

    I certainly don't know for sure that it's the same bicycle, but from context, it seems like might be: Léon Roux left a bike behind, and Grandpa started writing people to find out where it needed to be, and finally managed to get the issue resolved.

    It's been 80 years since these letters were written, and I doubt the bike still exists, but I can hope, right? If you are interested, here is a series of wonderful photos of the bicycles used during WW2. Did you know both sides had bicycle machine-gun troops? And that they had bicycle ambulances, and tandem bikes that accommodated up to five people?

    Bicycles played an important part throughout my grandfather's story - he didn't own a car until sometime after he moved to the US in 1947 though he learned to drive while he was still in Europe (the government of France provided him with a car to use while he worked on the reconstruction). But after the invasion of Belgium in 1940, enough infrastructure had been damaged in the attack that public transportation wasn't an option for a while, so he rode his bike 40 km to work (about 2 hours each direction).  

    I don't know for sure what happened to that bike - but I thought perhaps he might have given it to his brother Paul when my grandparents escaped to France.  About a year later, Paul got himself from Belgium to Scotland via Switzerland, France, Spain and Gibraltar, but I mostly don't know how he did it.  Since he too was escaping, I thought maybe he pedaled the backroads at night on his brother's bike, and so I was thrilled when I came across this photo at the article linked above:

Soldiers walk their bikes along a partly frozen lake
on an alpine pass in Switzerland in 1943.
Source: The Atlantic

    It proves that my guesswork regarding how Uncle Paul got himself across Europe wasn't completely implausible. It took him about 18 months to work his way from Belgium to the UK, but about half of it was spent in the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp in Spain.  Even excluding his incarceration, it took a long time, so I think he couldn't have just taken a train, because then the trip would have been measured in days, not months.  So, I think he must have made the journey on foot, on his bike, with the help of underground networks, or some combination of all three (which is how I depicted it in Paul's book).

    After Grandpa escaped to and settled in rural France, he got a job as a farmhand to ensure his family stayed fed. I wrote — and this next bit is completely made up — that he borrowed a bicycle from his landlord so that he could get around the neighborhood more easily.  After they immigrated to the US, Grandpa was forced to buy a car, but I think he must have been nostalgic for his time pedaling around Belgium, because at some point he acquired another bicycle. I recall seeing it in his garage in Tulsa, although I never actually saw him ride it.  

    Interestingly, my grandmother never learned how to ride, and one of my aunts either didn't learn, or had difficulty learning. I too had trouble mastering the bicycle, which makes me wonder if there was a genetic component - but I had a gross motor development delay that meant I was poor at alternating movements (pedaling a bike, or the crawl stroke in swimming) but good at mirror-image movements (breast stroke or jumping jacks). I outgrew it by eight or nine, when I finally learned to ride a bike. 

Spring 1945: Arthur and Léon investigate the .... "Lentil Affair"

The opening of Léon Roux's 19 March 1945 letter
to Commander Planas

    It seems that bureaucracy is universal.  

    I first came across the Lentil Affair (and oddly dramatic-sounding name for something that must have been incredibly irritating for the participants) when I was going through some correspondence in the Drôme Department archives that was to, from, or about my grandfather.

    After the liberation of the region of France where my grandparents lived, there were still wartime shortages of firewood, food, paper, and many other things.  And then with the dissolution of Maquis units all over France, came the problem of what to do with the men and women who had fought to free France from the Nazis. Some maquisards joined the French army, but many (my grandfather was one) demobilized. Grandpa was lucky enough to have a job waiting for him (he was tasked with organizing the rebuilding of the Valence area), but others did not.  And with no jobs, people got even less to eat.

    Captain Planas was put in charge of the Valence-area FFI Amicable Association, which I believe must have been similar to our Veterans Association. In other words, he helped ensure his former soldiers and their families had access to inexpensive food and firewood. I think it must have been like going to work for the VA.

    And that is how, in late 1944, the Lentil Affair got started, commencing a six-month-long ordeal that punished just about everyone involved:

LENTIL AFFAIR REPORT

     When the 4th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Drôme was dissolved on September 20, 1944, it was agreed to establish among all - mobilized and demobilized - a veterans cooperative aimed at helping comrades in need, and facilitating better access to provisions for everyone.

     Lieutenant ROUX of Petits Robins, now demobilized, began searching throughout the Diois region for farmers willing to sell lentils, potatoes, apples, and other vegetables at fair prices for everyone.

     These negotiations were carried out openly, and a truck that we chartered, went to collect a load of lentils and apples, but in the meantime, the police took notice, and when the truck was on its way back, it was stopped by the police, and the goods were nearly confiscated.  Thanks to the personal intervention of Lt. ROUX, who was escorting the vehicle, the truck reached its destination safely.  

     Later, the farmers who had delivered the lentils were pursued by the Economic Control Office, a formal report was issued, and they were fined.  Once informed, Lt. ROUX phoned to notify us of the situation, and the Commander intervened with the police captain to have the legal actions stopped.

     He replied that the orders had come directly from the Ministry of the Interior, and that they were strict, but that it might still be possible to stop the matter by intervening with the Economic Control and General Supply Office, which we did, and I personally appealed to Superintendent FOLLET, and Former Intendant RAYMOND of the Maquis promised to intervene.

     However, around December 15, we were informed that the farmers were required to pay a fine before December 28. I again intervened with Superintendent FOLLET and Mr. DONNADIEU requesting that the prosecutions be suspended.  

     I thought the matter was settled, but about a week ago, we learned that the fine for each farmer had not been canceled, but had been reduced to 1,100 francs per farmer.

--Mr. Mammouth, date unknown, but probably early spring 1945.

    (Using all caps for last names is a convention used in French writing).

    From that, it looks like Léon Roux started buying food from local farmers in the fall of 1944. The following spring, he said this to Commander Planas:

Indeed, Lubinsky informed me that our 'lentil affair' was over. But I fear there has been another mistake, for the theater of operations was not Valdrôme; rather, it was Beaurières, or more exactly La Bâtie-Crémezin, a few kilometers away. But I will settle this question with Lubinsky.

-- Léon Roux, 19 March 1945

    Note: The misspelling of my grandfather's name (Lubinsky when it should have been Lubinski was a common mistake. For what it's worth, my family is Polish, and the suffix is spelled "-ski" in Poland.  They spell it "-sky" in Russia.

    Two days later, Mr. Roux sent a rather grouchy letter to my grandfather:

     Having been entrusted by Commander PLANAS with the unfortunate matter of the lentils purchased by the 4th Company’s Cooperative, I requested a report from MAMMOUTH, who previously dealt with the case. Please find the attached copy of this report.

     With this document, I visited Mr. FOLLET and Mr. DONNADIEU and there I was informed that the matter is settled and that the Mayor of VALDROME confirmed this in writing. Yet last Sunday you informed me that the lentils were not purchased in VALDROME but elsewhere, and that the fines were never reimbursed to the farmers.

    As for me, I deeply regret having become involved in this matter without having been properly briefed. Although this is unpleasant for me, I will resume inquiries as soon as you provide a clear and detailed account of the facts.

-- Léon Roux, 21 March 1945

    And finally two weeks later, Mr. Roux mentioned it a final time in another letter to my grandfather:

     Yes, Mr. Brun’s case was the only 'lentil affair'. He is the only one who received ... and paid!

-- Léon Roux, 4 April 1945

    Now, I have no idea who Mr. Brun is. Was he one of the farmers? Or was he an FFI member from one of the units based near Valence?  I'm guessing he was a farmer who sold lentils to the FFI cooperative, and that he received a citation and paid it. I can only hope that he was reimbursed for the fine, and that the Lentil Affair was genuinely over.

October 1944: Arthur writes a tribute (and proves he is a damn fine writer)

     It's funny what you find when digging through a loved one's papers after they die. There are the usual expected items, like paperwork and old bills, and often a surprise or two, but sometimes, one is lucky enough to unearth a beautiful story, a gift to those who are left behind.   This is about one such gift.

    But this story is quite different from Grandpa's other writing from that time.  He wrote it in his native French for one thing, and for another, I think he was trying to be eloquent. He always was a good writer, but this is something extraordinary.  It must have been important to him, because three years later, he carried this handwritten original across an ocean, and five decades later we found it in his files.

    And unlike his other personal writing, he didn't write it on his beloved yellow legal pads.  Instead, he wrote it on a blank police report of all things.   

Police report used in Valence, France during the
occupation. This is page 3 of a 5-page tribute.

    After France was liberated, government entities stopped using forms that said "d'Etat" on them (as it was associated with the collaborationist Vichy government, which by the end of the war was tremendously unpopular), and so the Valence PD relegated this particular report to be used as scrap paper.  Paper was still in short supply due to wartime shortages, and so scrap paper got used instead of being discarded.  Grandpa's FFI unit also took over the Valence police barracks immediately after the city was liberated at the end of August, 1944, so he would have had easy access to such scrap paper. 

    I've written about the first part of this article before - when I compared Grandpa's three versions of his escape up a mountain, with Dr. Michel Planas's version of the same event, but I now have access to much better transcription and translation tools, and I re-did the translation (as always favoring the literal and use of cognates as much as possible, yet making sure it works in English). Grandpa also used some very complex French sentence constructions that resulted in confusing phrases in the translation that sometimes contradicted what he actually said.  This time, however, I'm including the second part, a tribute to a Swiss war correspondent named René Payot.

    When I finished the new translation, I was left in awe at the beauty of his writing, which reads like it was written by statesman speechwriter with a side gig as a naturalist poet undergoing basic training. He writes of forced marches and storms in the mountains, of the treasured miniature radio he used to listen to Payot, and finally of freedom of speech and conscience.

    See for yourself (the original French is at the end of this article):

Tribute to René Payot

The marching orders have just been given. The Company is leaving its forward position on the plain to join its comrades holding the plateau some thousand meters above. The endless column snakes along the mountain paths and trails, sometimes visible from afar, and at others plunges into the woods, where it could be said that friendly foliage physically hides it from the gaze of foreign birds of prey.  

Little by little, the pace of our ascent slows. A mounting fatigue takes hold of each man, his shoulders bend under the burdens of his mountain pack, his weapons, and as much ammunition as it was humanly possible to carry. The march has gone on for several hours, yet the company is still not halfway there. Time slips by.  Each step aches, and every moment, the pain in our muscles intensifies. Just two hundred more meters, and it seems we’ll no longer be able to go on. But at the end of that distance, willpower overcomes exhaustion, and we keep moving forward... We are still 10 kilometers from our objective, and drops of sweat flood our faces, stream into our eyes, and blind us, yet we keep moving forward.... 

A storm crashes into the mountain. Lightning streaks through the sky. Thunder crashes, almost wanting to shatter the stony path. Torrential rain drenches the forest.  It could be said that the earth and heavens merge into a single chaos. Not a thread on us remains dry. Our shoes, heavy with the water they have drunk, wade through the sunken trail, now a sudden rushing stream.  But we keep going, we always keep going... 

Night has fallen by the time the company finally arrives at its destination. They are to take over two farms and a shepherd’s hut. In near-total darkness—there is no electricity on the plateau — the various groups settle into sheds and haylofts. Guards are posted and kitchens are set up. 

Despite his extreme fatigue and the cold, the "radio man" leaves the farm in search of the mule convoy, which must have gotten lost in the mountains. Into the opaque night, the darkest night, he hurries off to find the column to which he entrusted his field radio - the little parachuted gem knows as "Biscuit."  

    An hour later, he's finally tuned in. Headphones on, pencil in hand, he jots down a few notes by the flickering glow of a candle. A few minutes later, he announces the latest news: “No message for us - Russian troops advanced 40 kilometers in 24 hours in the Bialystok sector. - A thousand American bombers attacked German fuel depots. - Enemy counterattacks repelled by the British southwest of Caen, etc..." 

In each person’s mind, the same thought arises: “All this and nothing to report — just blood on the distant Polish plain…”  To the west, the long-awaited day has yet to come. 

However, the radio man continues: "Yes, but it's Saturday night - in 30 minutes, at 11:15 we can catch René Payot on shortwave." 

“That’s true,” someone replies. “We missed it yesterday - we must catch it tonight.” 

And despite their exhaustion, a small circle of officers remains beside the radio man to hear what René Payot has to say. 

Who then are you, Monsieur René Payot, that in homes all over France, people gather every week to hear your voice, just as they likely do across all the oppressed countries of Europe where those with the most influence know French?  What explains this extraordinary influence you hold over millions of listeners? 

Above all, we all felt that at heart, you were an ally. Your country’s neutrality did not allow you to express this openly. But we understood, courtesy of your finely ironic and nuanced phrases, the jabs only a Gaullist would catch on the fly but the heavy German mind would miss, and most of all, your transitions, for which no description could ever suffice. 

But this is not the principal reason for your influence. Your sympathy for the Allied cause alone cannot explain your prodigious success, because that sympathy was already shared with us by every voice of the free world. We saw in you, Monsieur René Payot, a man who, in dissecting and analyzing the lives of nations, sought to set aside his own passions and partisan sympathies, a man who strives to judge with logic and intelligence alone. 

Sometimes you arrive at conclusions that dishearten us, and no doubt yourself as well. Yet we still welcomed them, because it made us feel closer to reality.  On the other hand, when you gave us information or deductions that matched our deepest hopes, they brought us even greater satisfaction, because we knew they came from a search for truth, and not from propaganda-- whether for a just cause or a harmful one.

It must not happen in the world of tomorrow, a world that will no doubt be striving toward improving the human condition and achieving a more just distribution of wealth -- it must not happen, I say -- that in such a world, great open minds don't have a place. It is essential that in society there always be men who speak and write freely, obeying only an inner need to seek what seems to be genuine truth, even if their ideas may contradict official propaganda, party rule, or corporate trust. 

I hope that in countries that remained free, and those becoming so again, we will always find both the critical and independent minds like yours, but also the conditions that allow them to flourish and speak. 

In the long dark night of the Nazi occupation, those conditions no longer existed, and yet through the ether, from beyond the Gestapo’s control, came the flickering light of the purest torch of Truth and Liberty.

Arthur Lubinski

Valence, October 1944

   

 Damn. That's good.

    There are a few "it could be saids" and similar phrases still in place, which are a little awkward in English (but are probably smoother in the original French), but I left them in to ensure that I remained true to his actual words. I think he must have written the story for publication, because he calculated the number of words in the article.

Page 6 of Grandpa's article, listing the word counts

     I don't know, maybe it was published somewhere?

    When I read this, I'm amazed at his talent (he was an engineer by trade, and not a writer), but I also feel a little uneasy, because I think just maybe ... that he was a better writer than I am.  

    I've always known my grandfather was a good writer.  He wrote a couple of books and many industry papers. A petroleum engineer once told me the story of taking a casing design class, and the professor handed out a copy of my grandfather's 1962 paper Helical Buckling of Tubing Sealed in Packers, and told the class "when given the choice of what to take with you to a deserted island, Arthur Lubinki's paper, or a beautiful movie star ... always chose the paper. The movie star will age, but the paper will always be beautiful."  

    It's also fitting that there's an industry award named for him, the Arthur Lubinski OTC Best Paper Award, that honors the highest quality paper presented at the OTC conference.  The award is often called "a Lubinski," as in, "he won a Lubinski."

Hommage à René Payot

L’ordre de marche vient d’être donné. La Compagnie quitte la position avancée face à la plaine pour rejoindre les camarades qui tiennent le plateau à quelque mille mètres au-dessus d'elle. L’interminable colonne serpente sur les chemins et sentiers de montagne, tantôt visible de loin, tantôt s'engouffrant dans les bois, dant le feuillage complice la cache, dirait-on matériellement, à la une des oiseaux de proie étrangers.  

Petit à petit le rythme de la progression se ralentit. Un fatigue grandissante s'empare de chaque homme, dont les épaules ploient sous le fardeau du sac de montagne, des armes et l’autant de munitions que il était humainement possible d’emporter. La marche dure déjà depuis plusieurs heures et la compagnie m’est pas encore à mi-chemin. Le temps passe. Chaque pas commence de provoquer une peine musculaire qui s'amplifie rapidement. Encore deux cents mètres, et nous ne pourrons plus, semble-t-il avancer. Mais au bout de cette distance la volonté vaine la fatigue, et l’on avance toujours … Nous sommes encore à 10 km du but, des gouttes de sueur inondent le visage, coulent dans les yeux, aveuglent, mais on avance toujours … 

Un orage s'abat sur la montagne. Le ciel est sillonné d'éclairs. Le tonnerre semble vouloir faire éclater les rochers. Une pluie torrentielle inonde les bois. On dirait que le terre et les cieux se confondent en un seul chaos. H m’y a plus sur nous un fil de sec. Les souliers, alourdis par l’eau qu'ils ont bue, pataugent dans le chemin creux, devenu soudain un torrent. Mais on avance, on avance toujours … 

La nuit est tombée lors qu’enfin la compagnie arrive à destination. Elle occupera deux fermes et une bergerie. Dans la quasi-obscurité, car sur le plateau il m’y a point d'électricité, les divers groupes se cassent dans les remises et les fenières. On organise le service de gardes, les cuisines.

En depit de tomte sa fatigue et du froid, le “radio” quitte la ferme a la recherche de la colonne muletiere qui a du se pendre dans la montagne. Dans la nuit opaque, la nuit incre, il s'élance à la recherche de la colonne a la quelle il a confié son poste de radio de campagne, le petit bijou parachute, dénommé “biscuit”. Un heure après, il est enfin à l'écoute. Le casque aux oreilles, le crayon en main, il prend rapidement quelques notes à la lueur vacillante d’une bougie. Quelques minutes plus tard il annonce les dernières nouvelles: “Pas de message qui nous concerne - Avance rus de 40 km en 24 heures dans le secteur de Bialystok. - Mille bombardiers américains ont attaqué les ressources allemandes en carburants. – Contre-attaques ennemies repoussées par les Britanniques au sud-ouest de Caen, etc…” 

Dans l’esprit de chacun naît ce commentaires “Somme toute R.A.S., sang dans la plaine de Pologne si lointaine … À l'ouest de jour tant attendu n’est pas encore venue”. 

Cependant le "radio" ajoute: “Oui, mais c’est samedi aujourd'hui; dans une demi-heure, á 23 heures 15, nous pourrons capter René Payot sur ondes courtes”. 

“C’est vrai” - lui répond-on- “Nous n'avons pu l’avoir hier, il faut le prendre aujourd’hui”. 

Et malgré la grande fatigue, un petit cercle d'officiers restera auprès du “radio” pour savoir ce que dira RENÉ PAYOT. 

Qui donc êtes-vous, Monsieur René Payot, pour que dans tous les foyers de France on se rassemble une fois par semaine pour vous écouter et qu’il en est probablement de même dans tous les pays opprimés d'Europe en ce qui concerne les élites qui connaissent la langue française? A quoi est dû ce prodigieux ascendant que vous exercez sur des millions d’auditeurs? 

Tout d’abord nous sentions tous que de cœur vous étiez votre allié. La neutralité de votre pays ne vous permettait point de l’exprimer ouvertement. Mais nous nous comprenions, grâce a vos phrases nuances d’une fine ironie, grâce à vos pointes qu'un gaullois saisissait au vol et qui étaient probablement sans justification pour le lourd esprit germain, grâce surtout à vos transitions pour lesquelles toute épithète semblerait vaine. 

Mais la ne gît point la principale raison de votre ascendant. Votre sympathie pour la cause alliée ne saurait expliquer votre prodigieux succès, car une telle sympathie nous était déjà acquise parmi tous les porte-parole des pays libres. Nous sentions en vous, Monsieur Rene Payot, un  homme qui pour disséquer, analyser les faits de la vie des nations, essaye de faire abstraction de ses sympathies, de ses passions, un homme qui pour juger, tâche de n’utiliser que la logique et l’intelligence.  

Parfois vous arrivez à des conclusions qui ne nous rejouissaient pas, - ni vous non plus, j’en suis sûr. Néanmoins nous aimions en prendre connaissance, car nous nous sentions alors plus près de la réalité. Par contre, lorsque les renseignement ou les déductions que vous nous communiquiez correspondaient à nos voeux profonds, ils nous procuraient un contentement d'autant plus vif, que nous les savions issues d'une recherche de la vérité et non d'un désir de propagande que cela soit au service d'une bonne ou d'une mauvaise cause. 

Je ne faudrait pas que dans le monde de demain qui sera sans mil donte oriente vers la recherche d’une amélioration de la condition humaine d’une plus juste répartition des richesses, il ne faudrait pas, dis-je, que dans ce monde, de grands esprits ouverts ne puissent plus trouver place. Je est indispensable que dans la société il y ait toujours des hommes qui puissent s’exprimer et écrire librement en n'obéissant qui à leur besoin inné de chercher ce qui leur semble être honnêtement la vérité, même si leurs ideas, peuvent déplaire à une propagande officielle, au parti qui détient le pouvoir ou à un trust quelaouque. 

J'espère que dans les pays restés libres, comme dans ceux qui redeviennent tels, ou trouvera toujours, à la fois, des esprits critiques et indépendants comme le votre, ainsi que les conditions qui leur permettent de s'épanouir et de s'exprimer. 

Mais dans la nuit obscure de la longue occupation nazie de telles conditions n’existaient plus apportait alors, a travers l'éther, incontrôlable, par la Gestapo, les reflets due plus pur flambeau de Vérité et de Liberté.

Arthur Lubinski

Valence, octobre 1944