German journalist Nils Klawitter retraced the resistance past of Mélanie Volle (Mélanie Berger, her maiden name), who lived part of her life in Haute-Loire, in a book which has just been published. The old Brivoise celebrated its 103rd birthday yesterday!
This Tuesday, October 8, Mélanie-Volle Berger celebrated her 103rd birthday, in her residence in Saint-Étienne where she has lived for several years. An exceptional age for a woman with an equally exceptional career. In Haute-Loire, many remember the life of her husband, Lucien Volle, who died in 2012 at the age of 90 and was a member of the Lafayette group and an actor in the liberation of Puy-en-Velay in August 1944. The couple lived for many years in Brives-Charensac. 12 years after the death of her husband, Mélanie Volle, her maiden name Mélanie Berger, is the subject of a book. German journalist Nils Klawitter (journalist for the famous daily Der Spiegel), aged 57, worked for six years to retrace his entire journey in the resistance. It was following a first report made six years ago that he became aware of the formidable past of this hitherto discreet Franco-Austrian woman, who had long remained associated solely with the career of her late husband. In recent years, Mélanie Volle has received real recognition for her action in the Resistance against Nazism which was corrupting her country of origin: Austria. She was recently declared an “honorary citizen” of her hometown of Vienna. A country that she had fled at the age of 16, after annexation to Nazi Germany. In Vienna on April 9, 1938, when Adolf Hitler gave a speech to nearly 250,000 people, not many of them anticipated what was going to happen and refused to applaud… Mélanie was there, she was part of it. The rest, History painfully teaches us with the Second World War the following year and more than 60 million deaths in six years… The young Mélanie Berger, from a Jewish family, refused this enslavement to Nazism. She felt this push even in Austria which idealized the dictator. Mélanie refused it and left her country to join the resistance. From there, followed an exceptional journey to say the least which prompted the German journalist to retrace it in a book published in Germany last September: “Die kleine savoir widerstand – Wie Melanie Berger den Nazis entkam”. Or literally: “The little resistance fighter – How Mélanie Berger escaped the Nazis”. Nils Klawitter came to investigate in France, in Haute-Loire itself, where certain Resistance actors rubbed shoulders with Mélanie in her youth, and well before her meeting with Lucien Volle.The journalist is in contact to find a French publisher who will translate the work from German.
“At the age of 15, Mélanie Berger pasted anti-Hitler leaflets on walls in Vienna. A little later, she had to flee the Nazis, via Belgium, towards the south of France. There, her resistance group is denounced, she is arrested and escapes from Marseille prison in her frantic action. Today, she is one of the few who can still talk about this era,” recalls the German journalist in a summary of his work. It’s true. At 103 years old on October 8, 2024, Mélanie Volle-Berger displays impressive form, a perfect memory and above all, a determination that commands admiration and respect. Nils Klawitter’s book pays tribute to a woman whose early commitment against the Nazi dictatorship and 80 years after the Liberation of Puy-en-Velay and France, she is still alive to bear witness to it, photos and documents at the ‘support. The release of this book takes on new resonance today, when the rise of the far right and anti-Semitism is being felt in Austria as well as throughout Europe.
Mélanie Volle, whom we met last April, keeps repeating it today at 103 years old: “I have always wanted to change the world and I always want to change it. »
Lionel Ciochetto
“Die kleine knows widerstand – Wie Melanie Berger den Nazis entkam”, by Nils Klawitter, published by Czernin. The book is currently only available in German and via the internet. But the author is in contact to find a French publisher who will translate the work into the language of Molière.
