This is a work of observation and interpretation that relies most heavily on my own travels to the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon, and the time I spent there doing the work of an anthropologist: listening, talking, working alongside people, accompanying them on their everyday tasks. The people of the Plateau—those who have lived there for generations and those who have only recently arrived—have grown dear to me and have given me more gifts of the mind and spirit than I can ever fully describe, let alone repay.
For the historical portions of this book, the stories and testimonies I recount are drawn from a variety of papers, letters, and other written and recorded evidence in publicly available archives and collections, often in digital or online formats, or in published collections noted below. My interpretation of a specific incident may differ from that of some historians in cases where I have found that the documentary evidence points in another direction.
Daniel Trocmé’s letters have been excerpted in a number of published sources, but I also consulted the originals in the André Trocmé and Magda Trocmé Papers, Swarthmore College Peace Collection. Eyewitness accounts assembled in support of the award of Righteous Among the Nations to Daniel, André, and Magda Trocmé, as well as to other key individuals on the Plateau, are housed at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. The stories of several Holocaust survivors who spent time in the Plateau come mainly from their video testimonies in the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive and interviews conducted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Oral History Collection.
Other major repositories include the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives (including the archive of the International Tracing Service), the Société d’Histoire de la Montagne, the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Déportation, the Comité Français pour Yad Vashem, the Mémorial de la Shoah, the Anonymes, Justes et Persécutés Durant la Période Nazie dans les Communes de France (ajpn.org), the French National Archives (Archives Nationales), and the Service Historique de la Défense.
I am especially grateful to Danielle Olgiati-Trocmé, niece and namesake of Daniel Trocmé, who showed me a privately published family memoir by her father, François, and let me see beautiful family photos, hold Daniel’s Medal of the Righteous in my own hands, and bask in her marvelous presence for three days. Gérard Bollon shared his profound understanding of the history of the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon and guided me toward deeper conclusions than I might have ever come to on my own. Pierre Sauvage and Patrick Henry, noted authorities on the Plateau, kindly connected me with people and resources early on. Like many before me, I am also thankful to Nelly Trocmé—daughter of André and Magda—who has done so much to preserve the memory of some of the extraordinary people whose lives I have been privileged to come to know.
I am indebted to the research and writings of historians, archivists, and other experts from whom I have drawn specific details in the unfolding of the wartime history of the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon, the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, and the Holocaust in France, or who have republished original documents and other information. Works that I found especially important include: Amir D. Aczel, The Artist and the Mathematician; Serge Bernard, Traces légendaires, mémoires et construction identitaire: Étude socio-historique d’une “presqu’île” cévenole en Haute-Loire; Serge Bernard et al., eds., Les résistances sur le Plateau Vivarais-Lignon, 1938–1945; Philip Boegner, “Ici, on a aimé les juifs”; Pierre Bolle, ed., Le Plateau Vivarais-Lignon: Accueil et résistance 1939–1944; Gérard Bollon, Les villages sur la montagne: Entre Ardèche et Haute-Loire, le plateau, terre d’accueil et de refuge; Roger Debiève, Mémoires meurtries, mémoire trahie: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon; Father Patrick Desbois, The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews; Deborah Durland DeSaix and Karen Gray Ruelle, Hidden on the Mountain: Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon; Jean Durand, Les contes de la Burle; Nathalie Duval, L’École des Roches; Annick Flaud and Gérard Bollon, Paroles de réfugiés, paroles de justes; Eva Fogelman, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of the Jews During the Holocaust; Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, ed. (compiled by Harry Stein), Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945: A Guide to the Permanent Historical Exhibition; Martin Gilbert, The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust and Atlas of the Holocaust; Peter Grose, A Good Place to Hide: How One French Community Saved Thousands of Lives During World War II; Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland and Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation; Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There; Patrick Henry, We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France During the Holocaust; Beate Husser et al., Frontstalag 122, Compiègne-Royallieu: Un camp d’internement allemand dans l’Oise, 1941–1944; Philippe Joutard et al., eds., Cévennes: Terre de refuge 1940–1944; Vjeran Katunarić, “On Relevance of the Peace Culture Concept in the Study of Ethnic Relations on Local Levels” (unpublished paper); Serge Klarsfeld, La Shoah en France; François Lecomte, Jamais je n’aurai quatorze ans; Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light; Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews; Geoffrey P. Megargee, ed., United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945; Pearl Oliner et al, eds., Embracing the Other: Philosophical, Psychological, and Historical Perspectives on Altruism; Samuel P. Oliner and Pearl M. Oliner, The Altruistic Personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe; Charles Rist, Une saison gâtée: Journal de la guerre et de l’occupation 1939–1945; Pierre Sauvage, Weapons of the Spirit (film); André Sellier, A History of the Dora Camp: The Untold Story of the Nazi Slave Labor Camp That Secretly Manufactured V-2 Rockets; Tracy Strong, Jr., The Better Part of a Century; Alice Resch Synnestvedt, Over the Highest Mountains: A Memoir of Unexpected Heroism in France During World War II; Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness; Olivier Todd, Albert Camus: A Life; André Trocmé, Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution; Richard P. Unsworth, A Portrait of Pacifists: Le Chambon, the Holocaust, and the Lives of André and Magda Trocmé; Christine van der Zanden, “The Plateau of Hospitality: Life on the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon” (dissertation); Maria Wiśnioch, Majdanek: A Guide to the Historical Buildings; Susan Zuccotti, The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews; as well as the writings of Albert Camus, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, R. Frison-Roche, and Primo Levi, which inspired and devastated me throughout the writing of this book.
This book is also the record of a search. My faith orients me toward being a lifelong seeker, independently investigating truth. It has been my aim to show love and respect for the peoples of the world, the persons of the world, their homelands, and the holy texts and sacred Founders of their faith traditions.
The “holy words” referred to in Chapter 14 come from The Fire Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh. The “creeping things” quotation in Chapter 15 is from “Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.”