France has just lost one of the last great figures of the Resistance. Madeleine Riffaud, engaged at the age of 18 in a group of Francs-tireurs and partisans, before moving into armed combat in 1943, died Wednesday November 6, at the age of 100.
With her, the voice of one of the last witnesses of the fight against the Nazi occupiers during the Second World War dies away. His name is added to the long list of resistance fighters and deportees who have died in recent years, whether it is the last companion of the Liberation Hubert Germain in 2021, or Jacques Lewis, who participated in the Landing and died on July 25.
A handful of resistance fighters and deportees, approaching or passing the centenary, continue to pass on their story.
► Ginette Kolinka, deported to Auschwitz in 1944
At the age of 19, Ginette Kolinka was deported to Auschwitz with her father, brother and nephew, all murdered upon arrival in the camp. The young woman is selected for the job, and survives.
On her return to Paris, the young woman becomes a seller in the markets, without saying anything about what she experienced. For fifty years, the former deportee will remain silent. But a call from the Spielberg Foundation, which collects testimonies from survivors, made him change his mind. From the beginning of the 2000s, she became a great transmitter of memory. After having accompanied generations of students to Auschwitz, she delivers her testimony in a book, Return to Birkenau (Grasset, 2019).
► Daniel Huillier, resistance fighter in the Vercors
Daniel Huillier was still a teenager when the Second World War broke out. At just 15 years old, he joined his father and uncles in the Vercors maquis. His age does not prevent him from participating in various dangerous missions, whether weapons deliveries or resupply operations.
At 96 years old, the former resistance fighter is still national president of the Vercors Pioneers Association, and continues to pass on his story to younger generations.
Daniel Huillier published an article before the legislative elections in June, to remind us that the resistance fighters were “guided only by the idea of living in a democracy based on principles and values”and that their program was not “not that of xenophobia and racism, communitarianism and anti-Semitism”.
► Robert Birenbaum, member of the Parisian Immigrant Workforce
Born to Polish Jewish parents who were naturalized French, Robert Birenbaum led his first resistance action on July 17, 1942, the day after the Vél’ d’Hiv roundup, when he was not yet 16 years old.
Living hidden behind a concierge lodge in Aubervilliers, the teenager will lead the communist resistance of the Immigrant Workforce (MOI) in the north-east of Paris. His role? Recruit Francs-tireurs and partisans, these men responsible for the armed struggle within the organization.
The last surviving member of the Parisian immigrant workforce, Robert Birenbaum, received the Legion of Honor in 2023.
► Mélanie Berger-Volle, shadow activist
Mélanie Berger-Volle grew up in Austria, but had to leave her country when it was annexed by Germany. Barely arriving in France, she was sent by train to a camp, but escaped at the Clermont-Ferrand station.
The far-left activist then led several resistance actions in the South-West, including the distribution of leaflets in German to turn back the soldiers of the Third Reich. Arrested and imprisoned in Marseille, she escaped in 1943, then campaigned under false identities until the end of the Occupation.
At 102 years old, the resistance fighter was one of the bearers of the Olympic flame in the Loire.
► Roger Labranchu, resistance fighter deported to Buchenwald
After several months on the run to escape the Compulsory Labor Service (STO), Robert Lebranchu was arrested by the Germans in June 1943, while trying to join Free France with other resistance friends. At the age of 21, the young man was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, then to that of Schönebeck, where he was identified by the number 30 842. Shortly before the camp was liberated by the Americans, he escaped with others deported.
On his return to the Paris region, the young man took up rowing, a sport for which he was French champion in 1946, and which led him to participate in the London Olympic Games two years later.
► Arlette Testyler, survivor of the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup
At the age of 9, Arlette Testyler was rounded up in Paris in July 1942, and was taken, with thousands of other Jews, to the Vélodrome d’Hiver (Vel’ d’Hiv). With her mother and sister, the little girl was interned in the Beaune-la-Rolande camp, in Loiret. The family managed to escape, and lived in hiding until the end of the war.
Knight of the Legion of Honor since 2011, the former deportee told her story in the book I was nine years old when they rounded us upappeared in May 2024.
