Today, 5 June 2018, marks the anniversary of André Trocmé’s death in 1971.
André and his wife Magda, served Jesus in the French village of Le Chambon for fifteen years. During those years of service their village and parish because known as “the republic of Le Chambon” because of their persistent resistance to the Nazi violence against Jewish people. It is estimated that over 2500 people found safe refuge through their village, as the villagers took seriously their calling to be a city of refuge,” a sanctuary.
André was equally concerned for the victims and the perpatrators of violence. Jesus had arrested André’s anger and channeled his passions through deep convictions regarding the sanctity of life and the great value of a soul evidenced through the Cross of Christ. But still, André Trocmé was known as a “dangerous pastor.” Author Phillip Haille, opens a window on the struggle André and the village of Le Chambon faced:
World War II, between the Axis and the Allies, was a public phenomenon; military, journalistic, and governmental reporters made it abundantly available to the public. It impressed itself powerfully and deeply upon the minds of mankind, both during and after the war. The metaphors that descried it have a flamboyant cast: the war itself was a “world war,” with many “heroes”; there were “theaters of war,” and soldiers who participated in major “campaigns” received “battle stars.”
No such language applies to what happened in Le Chambon. In fact, words like “war” are inappropriate to describe it, and so are words like “theater,” While the story of Le Chambon was unfolding, it was being recorded nowhere. What was happening was clandestine because the people of Le Chambon had no military power comparable to that of the Nazis occupying force, or comparable to that of the Nazi conquerors. If they had tried to confront their opponents publicly, there would have been no contest, only immediate and total defeat. Secrecy, not military power, was their weapon.
The struggle in Le Chambon began and ended in the privacy of people’s homes. Decisions that were turning points in that struggle took place in kitchens, and not with male leaders as the only decision-makers, but often with women centrally involved. A kitchen is a private, intimate place; in it there are no uniforms, no buttons or badges symbolizing public duty or public support. In the kitchen of a modest home only a few people are involved. In Le Chambon only the lives of a few thousand people were changed, compared to the scores of millions of human lives directly affected by the large events of World War II.
The “kitchen struggle” of Le Chambon resembles rather closely a certain kind of conflict that grew more and more widespread as the years of the Occupation passed….
But the people of Le Chambon whom Pastor Andé Trocmé led into a quiet struggle against Vichy and the Nazis were not fighting for the liberation of their country or their village. They felt little loyalty to governments. Their actions did not serve the self-interest of the little commune of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in the department of Haute-Loire, southern France. On the contrary, those actions flew in the face of that self-interest: by resisting a power far greater than their own they put their village in grave danger of massacre, especially in the last two years of the Occupation, when the Germans were growing desperate. Under the guidance of a spiritual leader they were trying to act in accord with their consciences in the very middle of a bloody, hate-filled war.
And what this meant for them was nonviolence. Following their consciences meant refusing to hate or kill any human being. And in this lies their deepest difference from the other aspect of Word War II. Human life was too precious to them to be taken for any reason, glorious and vast though that reason might be. Their consciences told them to save as many lives as they could, even if doing this meant endangering the lives of all the villagers; and they obeyed their consciences.
Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The story of the village of Le Chambon and how goodness happened there. Philip Hallie, 1979.
Both André and Magda Trocmé and their nephew Daniel Trocmé have been included by Yad Vashem as the Righteous among the Nations. As well the whole village of Le Chambon has been honoured by Yad Vashem, only the second whole community to be honoured in this way.
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