Written by Elodie Monnier And Lisa Douard
May 8, 1945: German capitulation, end of the Second World War. A period that all today’s survivors remember, those who can still testify, like Mélanie Volle. She has fought since her adolescence against all forms of dictatorship and for freedom. First in her country, Austria, then in France where she continues to testify so that fascism does not return to power.
Mélanie Volle is free and standing, surrounded by her loved ones, carried by their love. Her life as a resistance fighter began in 1934, in an Austria in civil war, plunged into poverty. “We were fighting against Nazism. We didn’t understand why one people was superior to others. We were defending freedom and democracy but what we saw of Germany didn’t look like that.” remembers this woman, aged 102 today.
At 16, Mélanie Volle escaped from a deportation convoy. Refugee in France, the teenager continued her resistance before being imprisoned in Marseille. “We put up little posters on fascism, on Hitler… If there was a check, we pretended to kiss each other. That’s why we always left as boys and girls together.”she continues, from her apartment in Saint-Étienne.
After the war, Mélanie Volle continued to pass on her testimony alongside her husband Lucien Volle, also a resistance fighter.
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© Laurent Cluzel / France 3 Auvergne
After the war, it was with Lucien Volle, a resistance fighter from the Lafayette Group in Haute-Loire, the love of her life, that she continued the fight with young people. The couple tirelessly travels to schools to pass on their testimony.
For me it is necessary to explain, as much as I can, that Hitler came to power legally and that from the moment he was there it was a dictatorship. So I say, “Be careful of that.”
Melanie Volle102-year-old resistance fighter
Mélanie Volle has since received numerous decorations, including the Legion of Honor in 2013. She was also chosen by the Loire department and the town hall of Saint-Étienne to carry the flame, on June 22, before the Olympic Games and Paris Paralympics. Symbol of his courage and lifelong dedication to friendship, peace and freedom.
But in a context of rising extremes in Europe, nothing is certain according to her. “I’m feeling the same thing right now that I felt when I was fifteen. Will we have war or not? Now we’re not far from World War III.” Mélanie Volle still believes in love, this essential weapon against fascism. “Young people must be able to find love. Not hatred.”
