André and Magda Trocmé

thumb|Pastor André Trocmé

thumb|Magda Trocmé

André Trocmé (April 7, 1901  – June 5, 1971) and his wife, Magda (née Grilli di Cortona, November 2, 1901  – October 10, 1996), His mother, Pauline Schwerdtmenn, died when Trocmé was ten due to an automobile accident, leaving him to be raised by his distant but demanding father. André's father, Paul Trocmé, was a wealthy curtain manufacturer. Her father was an Italian born of Florentine nobility and was distant to Magda due to the death of his wife ( Magda's mother) who had died shortly after giving birth to her. When the refugees arrived, it also took in many Jewish young people wishing to continue their secondary education.

World War II

When France was overrun by Nazi Germany in 1940, Trocmé was a catalyst whose efforts led to Le Chambon and surrounding villages becoming a unique haven in Nazi-occupied France.

Trocmé and his church members helped their town develop ways of resisting the dominant force they faced. Together they established first one, and then a number of "safe houses" where Jewish and other refugees seeking to escape the Nazis could hide. These houses received contributions from the Quakers, the Salvation Army, the American Congregational Church, the pacifist movement Fellowship of Reconciliation, Jewish and Christian ecumenical groups, the French Protestant student organization Cimade and the Swiss organization Help to Children in order to house and buy food supplies for the fleeing refugees. Many refugees were helped to escape to Switzerland following an underground railroad network. Families were located who were willing to accommodate Jewish refugees; members of the community reported to the railroad station to gather the arriving refugees, and the town's schools were prepared for the increased enrollment of new children, often under false names. Many village families and numerous farm families also took in children whose parents had been shipped to concentration camps in Germany.

Trocmé refused to accept the deindividualization and dehumanization of Jews by those in power. "We do not know what a Jew is. We only know men", he said when asked by the Vichy authorities to produce a list of the Jews in the town. Between 1940 and 1945, when World War II ended in Europe, it is now documented by researcher Muriel Rosenberg in her 2021 book Mais combien étaient-ils? that at least 2,000 Jewish refugees, including many children, were saved by the small village of Le Chambon and the communities on the surrounding plateau because the people refused to give in to what they considered to be the illegitimate legal, military and police power of the Nazis. (Earlier unsubstantiated estimates were 3,000 to 5,000 refugees were saved.)

These activities eventually came to the attention of the anti-Jewish Vichy regime. Authorities and 'security agents' were sent to perform searches within the town, most of which were unsuccessful. One arrest by the Gestapo, however, led to the death of several young Jewish men in deportation camps. In addition, the director of their residence La Maison des Roches, Daniel Trocmé, who was André's second cousin, refused to let the young adults in his care to be sent away without him. He was subsequently arrested and later murdered in the Majdanek concentration camp. When Georges Lamirand, a minister in the Vichy government, made an official visit to Le Chambon on August 15, 1942, Trocmé expressed his opinions to him. Days later, the Vichy gendarmes were sent into the town to locate "illegal" aliens. Amidst rumors that Trocmé was soon to be arrested, he urged his parishioners to "do the will of God, not of men". The gendarmes were unsuccessful and left the town.

In February 1943, André Trocmé was arrested along with Edouard Theis and the public school headmaster Roger Darcissac. Sent to Saint-Paul d'Eyjeaux, a French internment camp near Limoges, they were released after four weeks and pressed to sign a commitment to obey all government orders. Trocmé and Theis refused but were nevertheless released. They went underground where Trocmé was still able to keep the rescue and sanctuary efforts running smoothly with the help of many friends and collaborators.

thumb|André Trocmé speaking in 1958 as co-secretary of the [[International Fellowship of Reconciliation]]

After the war, André Trocmé and his wife Magda served as co-secretaries for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Europe. During the Algerian War, André and Magda set up the group Eirene in Morocco, with the aid of the Mennonites, to help French conscientious objectors. In 1968, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

André spent his final years as a pastor of the Reformed Church in Geneva, where he died. Magda died in Paris. André and Magda are buried in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

Magda Trocmé was the guest of French radio program Les Chemins d'une Vie (Paths of a Life) recorded by Christian Lassalas for FR3 Auvergne Radio (April 1982 – 90 min).

The Vivarais-Lignon plateau and Le Chambon-sur-Lignon have become a symbol of the rescue of Jews in France during World War II.

As historians continue to examine events during the German occupation and Vichy rule, several longstanding disputes have emerged. In the case of the Vivarais-Lignon plateau and Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, they include whether the interpretations based on Trocmé's writings are complete or correct. Those issues are objectively addressed in Robert Paxton's Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order (1972) and in Patrick Henry's book, We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France During the Holocaust (2013). Meanwhile, Richard Unsworth's A Portrait of Pacifists: Le Chambon, the Holocaust, and the Lives of André and Magda Trocmé (2012) provides a thorough exploration of the roles and writings of the Trocmés. While Caroline Moorehead's Village of Secrets (2014) also examines the events on the Vivarais-Lignon plateau and in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, other authors, historians and documentary filmmakers believe that that book presents a biased and inaccurate view of what took place.

Books published in English

Angels and Donkeys: Tales for Christmas and Other Times (Good Books, 1998)
Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution (Plough, 2003)
The Memoirs of André Trocmé: The Pastor Who Rescued Jews (Plough, 2025)

References

Relevant literature

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Lambert, Carole. Against Indifference: Four Christian Responses to Jewish Suffering during the Holocaust: C. S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, André and Magda Trocmé. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2015.
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Romain Gary Les Cerfs-volants, 1980 (translated as The Kites, 2017)

External links

The Chambon Foundation
Richard Unsworth, .
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<u>A Good Place to Hide</u> by Peter Grose, a compellingly-written, accurate (fact-checked by numerous historians and André and Magda's daughter, Nelly Trocmé Hewett) account of how 2,000+ refugees were saved by Huguenot farmers on the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon during WWII. (Pegasus Books, 2015, http://pegasusbooks.com/books/a-good-place-to-hide-9781605986920-hardcover )
<u>We Only Know Men</u> by Patrick Henry, a thoroughly researched and referenced book that tells the stories of some of the courageous rescuers on the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon, who by instinct protected the oppressed and the helpless without first asking the question "Why?" (Catholic University of America Press, 2007, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1342636.We_Only_Know_Men )
Documentary. Aired in the US by the PBS.
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