Director of the Dijon girls' high school, Marcelle Pardé (1891-1945) had taught in Chaumont where her parents lived.
The name of Marcelle Pardé is well known in Dijon. It is that of a city college located on rue Condorcet. It is above all that of a great resistance fighter, who died in deportation at the age of 54.
Marcelle Pardé was born in Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère) on February 14, 1891. Her parents were married the previous year in Haute-Marne. His father, Léon, was general ranger of Water and Forests. His mother, Jeanne Leboeuf, was born in Chaumont, daughter of a prefect from Pailly. The family settled before the First World War in Chaumont, at a place called Chaumont le Bois.
Marcelle Pardé is a brilliant student. After attending the École nationale supérieure de Sèvres, she received a degree in history, then an associate degree in literature. Her first post was in Chaumont, where she also served the wounded of the American army during the First World War.
Back in 1943
Once peace returned, she left to work in the United States, then returned to France. In 1935, Marcelle Pardé was assigned to Dijon as director of the girls' high school. She notably returned to Haute-Marne in July 1943, upon the death of her father Léon in Chaumont.
A great patriot, she joined the Resistance, integrating the Brutus network. But she was arrested on August 3, 1944, a little over a month before the liberation of Dijon. Transferred to Paris then to Compiègne, she was deported on August 15, 1944 to Ravensbrück, the “women’s camp”, where she died on January 20, 1945, 80 years ago.
Another hero of the Resistance, his nephew Emile, died in Isère in August 1944.
No route in Chaumont perpetuates the memory of Marcelle Pardé, approved at the rank of lieutenant of the French Combatant Forces (FFC).
LF
Source: “Haute-Marne and Haut-Marnais during the Second World War”, Mémoires club 52, 2023.
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