FABULIST WIFE, MYSTERIOUS HUSBAND
Douglas Johnson on a famous
Resistance couple who perhaps didn't resist all the time
Paris HISTORIANS can be killers. Not so much when they exploit hindsight so as to emphasise someone's mistakes — because Napoleon did not know what his present- day biographers know, he can be shown to have behaved most foolishly at Waterloo — rather the historian as a killer is more ambitious and vicious. A hero can be destroyed. Everything that made him appear heroic is shown to be false. The vic- tim is at the historian's disposal.
There are some who believe that a num- ber of French historians are doing this today to a heroine and a hero of the war- time Resistance movement. The 85-year- old Lucie Aubrac and her husband Raymond have made themselves the essential emblems of French resource and courage during the dark days of German occupation. Lucie, a former history teach- er, has visited countless schools to tell her story and has written two books. Her hus- band has been a constant attender at con- ferences, and published his autobiography last year. In February Claude Berri's film, entitled simply Lucie Aubrac, presented a highly romanticised version of the couple in the Resistance, to which they responded with many television interviews and public appearances. Lucie liked to tell how, when the film was shown in Germany, several hundred schoolchildren gave her a stand- ing ovation of some five minutes. It was therefore understandable that a book, which raised the possibility that the Aubracs, far from being ideal figures of devotion to their country were in fact traitors, caused a scandal. The book was Aubrac, Lyon 1943 by Gerard Chauvy and it appeared shortly after Berri's film. The treason, if it occurred, concerned the most famous event of the Resistance. On 21 June 1943, Jean Moulin, the man designat- ed by General de Gaulle to unite the dif- ferent Resistance organisations, was captured by the Germans, along with eight leaders of the Resistance. They were hold- ing a secret meeting at Caluire, in the sub- urbs of Lyons. A special unit of the Gestapo, under the command of the noto- rious Klaus Barbie, broke into the house. How had the Germans known about the Caluire rendezvous?
Barbie fled to Bolivia after the war and had concealed himself. He was eventually identified, brought back to France and put on trial for crimes against humanity in 1983. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, but during his trial he claimed that Aubrac had been his agent. It was this accusation which was re- written by his lawyer after his death and which was called his 'testament'. This tes- tament was revived by Chauvy in his book, although he presented it as a question. What was the truth? At most one could see this as an insinuation.
There were many protests. One book- shop, the famous Tchann in Montpar- nasse, refused to stock any books by Chauvy's publisher, the highly respectable Albin Michel. The protests were all the more numerous because Chauvy's book seemed to fit into a concerted attempt to denigrate the Resistance. Jean Moulin himself had been depicted as a Soviet agent, and several writers are trying to find publishers who will help them to destroy the de Gaulle myth (one story is that the celebrated broadcast of 18 June 1940 did not announce the creation of Free France but dealt with very ordinary, technical matters). Therefore the Aubracs decided that it was not enough to reject the sugges- tions in television programmes and news- paper interviews, and that the best procedure would be to organise a round- table discussion with historians who were experts on the period in question and to publish the discussion in extenso.
The Aubracs' idea was put into action. There was agreement about the choice of seven historians, led by Francois Bedarida, who as a young man had been in the Resistance. To them was added Daniel Cordier, who had been Jean Moulin's assistant and, as the possessor of a consid- erable archive, is writing a life of Moulin (three large volumes have been pub- lished). He was therefore both a witness and a historian.
The discussion took place on 17 May, and after many delays caused by the Aubracs themselves it was published on 9 July as a 24-page supplement to the news- paper Liberation, with further articles appearing on the next three days. (It was thought that this was the appropriate news- paper, since the Aubracs had been mem- bers of the Liberation Resistance movement and its newspaper Liberation was first published in July 1941.) Immediately it was made clear that none of the historians believed that it was the Aubracs who had led the Gestapo to Caluire. This was the issue; this was what the Aubracs had hoped for. But, to the Aubracs' evident irritation, the historians did not stop there. They raised two major lines of enquiry. There were questions to which the Aubracs could not reply, there were contradictions and oddities in many of their movements.
Raymond Aubrac was first arrested on 15 March 1943, along with several other Resistance organisers. Also seized that day was a suitcase filled with documents relat- ing to the formation of a secret army. This was important news. Within nine days a Vichy official was sending an urgent mes- sage to all police commanders, instructing them to look out for this army. The Ger- mans took the news very seriously. Yet Aubrac (using the name of Vallet) was scarcely interrogated by the Germans. He was released after less than two months in prison. Why?
Lucie claimed that she had frightened the French prosecutor. She had told him that Vallet had been sent by de Gaulle: to prove it she got the BBC to send out a coded message that the judge could hear. But Daniel Cordier told her that no such message had been sent.
At Caluire eight men had been arrested. They were all sent to Paris (Moulin to his death). Only Vallet remained in Lyons. He was not tortured. Why was he so favoured? Did Barbie know that he was Aubrac, an important figure in the secret army? Some- times Aubrac said he did and sometimes he said that he did not. In the 17 May discus- sion he said that he did not know.
Lucie, preparing for the organised escape of her husband, went to Gestapo headquarters in Lyons several times. She claims that she went in and out without anyone stopping her. Is this credible?
Other examples could be given, but it is clear that Lucie is a fabulatist and that her husband is mysterious. If one were to follow his career one has to ask why de Gaulle dismissed him as Commissaire de la Republique, in Marseilles after five months; why in 1946 Ho Chi Minh was staying in his house at Soisy-sous-Mont- morency; why the Czech police archives mention him as having dealt with Com- munist party funds; why President Vin- cent Auriol and French intelligence were concerned about his activities.
The historians at the round table were not killers, they were searching for the truth. To do this they had to challenge those who had made themselves the stars of a great drama.
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