2002 Letter from CHAMBON SUR LIGNON: We headed into the mountains for Chambon sur Lignon. Some of you might have heard of this place, which had been the subject of a documentary on PBS a few years ago. It is a Huguenot village where people took in as many Jews as they could handle in the period of 1939-1945 and protected them from the Nazis. The local Gestapo commander knew that the Jews were there, but left them be. As I recall, he was an aristocratic Prussian and had no taste for the executions. Several times things got to be touch and go, but the townspeople prevailed. We recall one interview from that documentary in particular—with an elderly woman who was asked the question that would solve the obvious mystery. Why did they do such a dangerous thing? After all, if the Gestapo ever wanted to, they could have executed as many people there as they wished. The town was of no importance to the Nazis whatever. Her answer showed that she did not really understand why anyone would ask such a question. She said, simply, that there was no choice. Of course they had to do it--do anything they could to prevent the Jews from being killed. It was a matter of doing the right thing, whatever the consequences. It was just part of their religious view. The pastor in the local church had preached about the necessity, and they all agreed. They could not have lived with themselves if they had ignored the situation. Which means that they all knew about the situation. They knew about the concentration camps in a little mountain village in the southern part of France, while many people living much closer to the centers of communication and to the camps themselves, claim that they never knew.
Getting there was a tough drive up mountain roads, as bad as the worst we climbed in the US last year. We went from sea level to 4,000 feet in a very short distance, over a very long time. 20-25 mph max, often 10 mph, with hairpin curves up and down. It took forever and Ron was pretty tired when we finally arrived—to discover that the campground in town was closed until May 1. We parked in a school parking lot. A man was there and Ron went to him, tried to explain that we were too tired to move on. He was very understanding. He said that school was closed for the weekend, and we would not bother anyone and no one would bother us for only one night. Ron walked up into town, a steep climb up from the riverside where we were and passed the town’s old stone church on the way. That church made this side trip worth the trouble. Chiseled into the lintel above the entrance was the following admonition: "AIMEZ VOUS LES UNES, LES AUTRES", which literally translates "Love One Another".
Ron was quite affected by the motto on the lintel. We all know how hard it is to include those who are different from us among our loved ones. In 1939 these good people had had the strength of character to do exactly that.
There is another small mystery about this tiny place. On the way into town from at least two directions there is a sign in the shape of a cross, painted blue with white letters announcing the name of the town, Chambon, with this short description "cult of Protestantism". This struck us as odd – and we did not see it anywhere else. We believe that the word "cult" does not mean quite the same thing in French as it does in English, but this is still an odd road sign.
That night it rained and the mountains got very cold. It was probably in the thirties and very windy. In fact it was so cold that Ron could not stop shivering when we went out to videotape that lintel. So we have a very shaky picture of it and also of a bronze plaque on an old stone building across from the church which both explains and commemorates what the town did.
We very regrettably had to leave because of the cold and because there was no place to park without a very hard climb which would have been too hard for Adelle in the cold. So we started down the mountains.