Three questions for Thierry Durand, resident of Saint-Étienne-de-Montluc and member of the Saffré Maquis Remembrance Committee.
Why be part of this association?
Firstly, because the period of the Second World War has always interested me. Then, because it’s a family story. My paternal uncle, born in 1923, was a teacher. He had already been in the Resistance for some time. He heard the radio and took to the maquis in Saffré in June 1944. Three hundred maquis members waited for weapons to be airdropped, which did not arrive. On the morning of June 28, 1944, they were attacked by 1,500 German soldiers, supported by the Gestapo and French collaborators. Thirteen resistance fighters were killed on the spot and twenty-seven shot the next day at the Château de la Bouvardière, including my uncle Georges Durand, at the age of 21.
Why this investment?
When I was a child, we regularly went to Saffré, as well as to La Bouvardière. I was immersed in the memory of this tragedy. That is why, once I retired, I wanted to fully invest myself in the association of the Saffré Maquis Remembrance Committee, with the strong idea of transmission. We worked to develop the association by creating, in 2019, a website, which is one of the ways to talk. We collected testimonies, which is not easy so many years later. And we set up memory trails, to improve the visibility of the site in Saffré. The same for Saint-Herblain, with six signs.
The idea is to link these two sites because one does not go without the other. This year, we welcomed descendants of Resistance fighters from Chicago (United States) for the 80th anniversary.
What do you take away from this experience?
I feel useful by working to perpetuate the memory and transmit it again and again. What impressed me the most was the commitment of the young people of the time to our country.
Saturday June 29commemoration at the Bouvardière castle in Saint-Herblain. Contact: www.le-maquis-de-saffre.fr
