André and Magda Trocmé
André Trocmé (April 7, 1901 – June 5, 1971) and his wife, Magda (née Grilli di Cortona, November 2, 1901 – October 10, 1996),[1] were a French couple designated Righteous Among the Nations.
For 15 years, André served as a Protestant pastor in the French town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, on the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon, in south-central France.
In his preaching, he spoke out against discrimination as the Nazis were gaining power in neighboring Germany and urged his Protestant Huguenot congregation to hide Jewish refugees from the Holocaust during World War II.
His mother, Pauline Schwerdtmenn, passed away when Trocmé was ten due to an automobile accident, leaving him to be raised by his distant but demanding father.
[3] Trocmé became aware of the notions of identity and loyalty as his family was split between his mother's German heritage and his half-French brothers.
Trocmé met Magda Grilli, a Russian-Italian woman who had come to New York to learn social work and escape the confines of her home.
Believing in the same ideas as former Pastor Charles Guillon, André and Magda Trocmé became involved in a network organizing the rescue of Jews fleeing the deportation efforts of the Nazi implementation of their Final Solution.
"[7] Trocmé was a catalyst whose efforts led to Le Chambon and surrounding villages becoming a unique haven in Nazi-occupied France.
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.
[8] 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.
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.
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.
[10] 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.
[1] In January 1971, the Holocaust memorial center in Israel, Yad Vashem, recognized André Trocmé as Righteous among the Nations.
Several years later, Yad Vashem honored the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and the neighboring communities with an engraved stele erected in its memorial park.
André was the second cousin of Daniel Trocmé (1910–1944), who was involved in similar activities to rescue Jews from the Vichy government and died in the Majdanek concentration camp in April 1944.
In the case of the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon and Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, they include whether the interpretations based on Trocmé's writings are complete or correct.
While Caroline Moorehead's Village of Secrets (2014) also examines the events on the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon 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.
