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2021-09-26 Europe

In love with the Resistance: My mother-in-law's war

[BBC] On a moonlit night in March 1944, two agents floated down on parachutes into the Languedoc highlands east of Castres, in southern France.

One was Pierre Haymann, a Parisian Jew who had been trained in sabotage and partisan warfare in the UK. The other was Bernard Schlumberger, a Protestant from Alsace, who was to be the Free French army's envoy in the Toulouse region of south-west France.

Their brief was to unite the scattered local Resistance militias behind Free French leader Gen Charles de Gaulle, from a base in the tiny town of Vabre where they had been guaranteed protection by local partisans.

But before starting work, Pierre travelled 400km to the city of Lyon to find his girlfriend, Marion Muller, from whom he had been parted 15 months earlier.

It was a risky journey as the SS in that city knew him well. Marion and Pierre were both members of the Resistance, and in 1942 Pierre had been captured and taken to the notorious Hôtel Terminus, where SS commander Klaus Barbie - the "butcher of Lyon" - tortured his victims.

Pierre managed to escape, but then had no choice but to flee over the Pyrenees into Spain in midwinter.

When they were reunited in 1944, Marion dyed Pierre's hair red in an attempt to disguise him, but the paramilitary police soon tracked him down. There was a shootout, in which Pierre was injured, then the couple hurried to safety in Vabre.

Posted by Besoeker 2021-09-26 07:10|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

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