 From the Shelf to the Heart The first book I read for my Great Memorial Weekend Read was Résistance: A Woman’s Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnès Humbert. It was almost the only book too. What set the tone for me was a single page that followed the preface that in lieu of the usual acknowledgements was a dedication to her “comrades” who had either been executed by firing squad or killed in a Nazi slave labor camp or—the worst of all—“died by his own hand on 2 March 1944 after withstanding three days of torture by the Gestapo, during which he refused to utter a word in betrayal of his companions in arms.” Agnès Humbert was a 43-yrear-old respected art historian in Paris in the summer of 1940 when rumors of a German invasion began to circulate. “I’m convinced that our position is extremely serious,” she wrote in her first diary entry dated June 7. “Life at the museum has become positively sinister. Most of the collections have been evacuated. All that’s left is the library. . . . The entire population is leaving Paris; we are living in an atmosphere of panic'; people seem to have lost all capacity for reasoned thought.” Humbert flees along with others, reaching her mother’s home but a month later decides to return to Paris even though she knows the Germans, now in control, will no doubt dismiss her from her professional position. There have been minor but important signs of rebellion even as the Germans begin to tighten their control. Suddenly I blurt out when I have come to see him, telling him that I feel I will go mad, literally, if I don’t do something, if I don’t react somehow. Cassou confides that he feels the same, that he shares my fears. The only rememdy is for us to act together, to form a group of ten like-minded comrades, no more. To meet on agreed days to exchange news, to write and distribute pamphlets and tracts. And to share summaries of French radio broadcasts from London. (6 August 1940) And thus began the first organized French resistance group. For several months—from August of 1940 through they meet, create, and distribute tracts and broadsheets including their own publication, Résistance. Humbert appoints herself the “runner” of the group, the one who will carry instructions and advice between members. Despite the very real danger there is a strong sense of essential work being done. Their spirits are high; laughter is a regular companion. But for Humbert the end comes on April 13: “Why did I look at the electric clock? It said twelve twenty. Idiotically, I said to myself,: ‘You were arrested at twenty past twelve.’ ” Humbert was taken by the German police to the headquarters of the Sûreté Nationale where over the course of several days she is questioned (without revealing anything) before being imprisoned between bouts of more questioning. The prisons are god-awful things, dark, infested with vermin, smelling of the slop pails, small, isolated. Yet the prisoners have developed an effective if rough communication system despite the guards. And sometimes even more: The death sentence comes as no surprise. On his return we sang ‘La Marseillaise’. The guards said nothing.” It isn’t until January of 1942 that she is finally brought to trial with several of her co-conspirators. Finally, on February 17, the end comes: The verdict at last! The judge is pale; I’ve never seen a man so pale; he has said that his duty as German is harsh. Today it is clear that his words were genuine. Passing these sentences is painful to him. He respects and admires the men whom he is about to condemn to death. A few of the defendants are to be released. Ten are sentenced to death. Three, including Humbert, are sentenced to imprisonment. The judge asks if there is anything I wish to say. I reply that, as he must be aware, over the last eleven months I have not uttered a word of truth; but that the purpose of this web of deceit was to protect friends whom the Germans would never lay their hands on, and not to exonerate myself. And since he is an army captain I add: ‘Despite my lies, I believe I have conducted myself with honour as the mother and daughter of officers.’ He bows his head in response. A month later, she ends up at Anrath, a forced labor prison camp in Germany. (A footnote is appended indicating that at the time Humbert was sentenced as a political deportee the policy was to use them as forced labor instead of sending them straight to extermination camps as would happen later.) The women are sent to work winding rayon thread onto spools. It’s nasty work, as it turns out, made all the nastier by unhygienic conditions, restricted toilet visits, freezing weather, few clothes, mean meals. And the cruelty. We’ve been wearing the same linen for six weeks now; we stink. A lot of the women, I learn, have crabs and lice. Sometimes we are able to take advantage of the freedom of the courtyard to wash our underclothes surreptitiously. All you have to do is steal a little soda; soap is such a distant memory that we can barely even remember what it looks like. My personal technique is to scrape off the dirt with a bit of brick that I pick up in the courtyard. Sand is quite effective, too—a trip for the laboratories where they make X and Y beauty products! There are nowhere near enough washbasins or toilets for us all. everywhere there are long queues, women jostling each other, sharp words and thieving. Our sole possessions are a toothbrush and a comb, but if you take your eyes off them for a second they are likely to vanish mysteriously. Searches are becoming more and more frequent. What on earth do they expect to find on us, for heaven’s sake? We bury our most precious possessions, our most illicit treasures, in the sand in the courtyard, or stuff them down an old pipe that doesn’t seem to serve any other purpose. A stub of pencil, a scrap of nylon that might be used to make a dressing or an improvised slipper; an aspirin procured in some unthinkable manner, which we squirrel away in case of flu, since when we ask for medication we are never given any, except sometimes a day later. The list of treasures also generally includes a sanitary towel. Having a period must be a shameful ting in Germany. When any of us asks for a sanitary towel, the wardress puts on a great show of disgust and says she hasn’t got any. Then, In July, 1942, the possibility she fears happens: she is one of a group to be sent to the Phrix rayon factory, a place with a reputation for much uglier, much more dangerous work. The fear is still there as I circle the machine I am learning to clean; I know that viscose, a substance that looks like buckwheat honey and has the consistency of glycerine, produces terrible burns. Like phosphorus, it sticks to the wounds it causes and is impossible to remove, eating away the flesh to the bone. Usually you do not realize you have been splashed with viscose until you feel the pain. By then it is too late. The damage takes it course and forms a sort of abscess. When this comes to a head, you squeeze the pus and the wound solely heals up again. It is this viscose, which we all hate, that produces the artificial silk. Humbert’s descriptions like the one above are descriptive rather than emotive, yet there is something in her words that tore my heart apart while reading. Perhaps it is the ongoing pain even though she regularly injects humor and odd perspectives into it—wondering what Descartes would have made of industrial machinery, for example. Those are the things that saved her when others died, that ability to turn inflicted humiliations into routine experiences so that they no longer burned as humiliations, or the care and concern for her fellow prisoners, or her acceptance of small gifts such as the single egg from a sympathetic policeman or the two small safety pins from a secretary to close her shredded blouse over her breast. And I think this is what affected me most, the ability of this woman (and of course, many others) to rise above their circumstances to not just survive but to live. I kept wondering, could I have done that? Would I be willing to put myself into such danger as to join a resistance movement? Or would I be a coward? It’s a question I doubt any of us know the answer to without being forced into the situation, yet this book forced me to consider it for 325 pages. And to admit to the real possibility that I might not. I could not shake the disturbing acknowledgement, one I rarely visit, that what I view as self-humanity—a caring for others, a desire to improve my own corner of the world, a need for action in the face of injustice—would require courage I might not possess were I to be faced with something of this magnitude. It made the idea of blithely going on to another book, lighter in tone, seem disrespectful to the author and to all those about whom she writes. I found myself returning to the dedication page: In memory of my Comrades: Boris Vildé
Anatole Lewitsky
Pierre Walter
Léib-Maurice Nordmann
Georges Ithier
Jules Andrieu
René Sénéchal
executed by firing squad at Mont Valérien
on 23 February 1942.
Pierre Brossolette who died by his own hand on 22 March 1944 after withstanding three days of torture by the Gestapo, during which he refused to utter a word in betrayal of his companions in arms. Emile Müller killed in a Nazi slave labour camp by an Allied air raid in July 1944. After reading this book I needed to ask myself, who am I? These people knew who they were. Journalists, art historians, museum curators, and others who came together at a time of extreme danger and made choices that unquestionably had an exciting edge but also presented a choice about their future. Would I have done what they did in those circumstances? If not, or even if I have to question that assumption, then am I really who I think I am? It pains me to say that I honestly don’t know what I would choose. And therefore, I really don’t know who I am.Upcoming Book Festivals: Location: Marietta, Georgia Location: Hartford, Connecticut Location: Hartford, Connecticut The Pub House: Imaging Books & Reading: Of Interest: Until next week, read well, read often and read on!
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