Lyon
November 20, 1992
There are moments in life that can change a person’s existence forever. Valérie Portheret did not know that that chilly autumn afternoon would be one of those. Despite her youth, she was a determined woman, capable of ordering her entire being around a just cause. She felt more comfortable in the presence of the dead than the living; she was at her happiest in the archives, surrounded by old files and documents. The voices of those who were no longer whispered into her ear and begged her to tell the world their stories, but she did not yet know how to interpret the language of the dead, their desires and hopes and dreams. The lost names of those rescued at Vénissieux were still unknown to her, though she was aware that there were more ghosts than living inhabitants circling the streets of Lyon.
The LICRA meeting was even more stripped down than the gathering the week before at the Amitié Chrétienne headquarters. The walls of the dilapidated LICRA office were lined with shelves that barely supported the weight of countless yellowed notebooks. It had the bored look of a municipal archives office. Six or seven people were chatting and milling about, occasionally casting a curious eye at the young blond woman across the room. Valérie smiled at everyone but secretly wanted to run out of the dirty, dust-caked building. Then the man who was going to lead the meeting came up to her and held out his hand.
“Hello, and thank you for coming. There are so few young people interested in the past. Sometimes I think about how, when those of us here are all gone, everything that happened will die with us.”
“Thank you for having me. I’m researching the children who were housed at the Peyrins château.”
“It’s a fascinating subject. Allow me to introduce you to one of our LICRA members.”
The man led Valérie to a man with short, curly gray hair who was deep in conversation with an older woman.
“This is René Nodot. He was a member of the Resistance and has put together a pamphlet on some of the children in Peyrins.”
René turned and stared in surprise at Valérie.
“You’re Valérie Portheret, yes? I believe we’re neighbors, though it hasn’t been long.”
Valérie’s jaw dropped. “Goodness, you’re right. You live on the top floor.”
“Indeed I do. I had no idea you were interested in these matters.”
Valérie’s mind was blown that one of her neighbors had been part of the French Resistance.
The man who had introduced them nodded and said, “Well, we’re going to start now.”
The lecture lasted about an hour. The speaker talked some about the Resistance in 1942 but focused more on the dangers of the extreme Right and the recent rise in anti-Semitism in France.
René walked Valérie to the door and was bidding her farewell when she asked if he would like to go out for coffee.
“You see, I’m very interested in what happened at the Peyrins château.”
René nodded and said goodbye to the rest of the LICRA members.
* * *
They walked along the bank of the Saône River as the evening sun seemed to set the façades of the houses behind them on fire. The city had once been wealthy due to the silk trade but was now in slow decline.
They entered a nearby café. The light from the lamps on the table struggled to filter through the thick cigarette smoke. They sat at the back, though the place was not crowded. As the season turned colder, more and more people stayed home instead of venturing out.
“I had no idea you were part of the Resistance,” Valérie said when the dark coffee arrived.
“Well, it’s not something I go around trumpeting. To be frank, a lot of people now claiming to have been part of the Resistance never really were.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Think about it: until 1942 there was hardly any true Resistance since most French saw the occupation as a lesser evil, with the exception of a few left-wing militants, of course.”
Valérie held her cup between both hands to let its warmth chase away the cold. “People always prefer tranquility over freedom,” she mused.
“Absolutely. I couldn’t have said it better myself. For most French, the occupation seemed to chase away the phantom of the war. That reminds me of Winston Churchill’s famous phrase after the Munich Agreement, when he wrote to a friend. Churchill said that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had been given a choice between dishonor and war, and he chose dishonor, but Churchill said that he would have both.”
Valérie took a long sip from her steaming mug while René lit a cigarette.
“Will you tell me what happened with the children at the château?” she asked.
“It’s a sad and beautiful story.”
“Like all war stories,” she added.
“Well, in war there are a lot of stories that are only sad.”
Valérie nodded. She had heard a few like that. “War is the paradigm of sadness.”
René took a sip. The coffee cleared his head, and he began. “What happened at Peyrins was all thanks to an incredible woman named Germaine Chesneau. During the Great War she served as a nurse and had always felt a keen vocation to spend her life serving others. In 1926 she married Marcel Chesneau, and they moved to Peyrins. About a decade later the count of Sallmard rented them part of his castle. After the death of her husband in 1939, and with three young children, Germaine decided to turn the château into a refuge for children, like a summer camp during those first summers of the war. At one point the Nazis used part of the castle for their own purposes, but after France surrendered, Germaine got her space back. She was forty-six years old when France started deporting Jews to Germany. Starting in 1942, when the persecution against Jews spread all over the country, Germaine started receiving them in her residence, including some of those who had escaped from the Vénissieux camp.”
Valérie was riveted. “How many children from Lyon were at the château?” she asked.
“Around fourteen.”
“And what happened after that?”
“Well, when the front got too close, Germaine was advised to evacuate. How prudent that she did, because the Nazis got to the castle on August 29, 1944, with the intention of using the children as human shields.”
“What an incredible story.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“How did the 108 children manage to escape from Vénissieux? From what I’ve read, the Vichy government authorities rejected most of the exemption requests.”
René smiled, stubbed out his cigarette, and said, “The parents rescinded their rights.”
Valérie’s throat caught. “What rights?” she asked, fearing the answer.
“Their rights as parents, Miss Portheret. They gave up their own children.”
Anguish pierced Valérie’s heart. She began to imagine the pain those mothers and fathers would have suffered in giving up their children, losing them in order to save them.