On February 16, 1943, Mother Yvonne-Aimée was in Paris. She left Malestroit without revealing the reason for her sudden trip. Which did not reassure those around him, because we knew that the Germans were carrying out raids at that time and that the mother superior of the Augustinian community was suspected of hiding resistance fighters. On her arrival, mistaken for an English agent, she is arrested by the Germans.
She had planned to visit another nun who, in case she was not there, was to send a telegram to Father Labutte. He lives in Malestroit and has known Mother Yvonne-Aimée for almost twenty years. The sister notices the absence of Mother Yvonne-Aimée at the meeting. As planned, she then sent a coded dispatch indicating that she had been arrested by the Gestapo.
Panicked, Father Labutte decides to take the express the next morning. At 1 p.m., he is in Montparnasse. He recounts in his book Yvonne-Aimée as I knew her: “ In the corridor leading to the platform, I turned around suddenly, without knowing why, and found myself facing Mother Yvonne-Aimée, in civilian clothes, coat, garnet felt hats, glasses… Yvonne and I entered the same car … She was standing next to me… I said to her in a low voice, but with a joyful air:
– Are you released?
– No, I am not released, I am in prison. I suffered the torture standing in front of a wall. My head is in a sort of vice…”
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Tortured by the Germans
Father Labutte then understands that this is a bilocation, that is to say that Mother Yvonne-Aimée is both in the metro with him and, at the same moment, tortured by the Germans. Then, she goes down to Denfert-Rochereau and rushes through the corridors. He loses sight of her.
We learned later that Mother Yvonne-Aimée was in Cherche-Midi prison at that time and that they were trying to get her to talk. Without success anyway. The man responsible for this terrible task, a French militiaman, admitted after the Liberation: “She didn’t feel anything, we could do whatever we wanted. I said to myself: is it made of wood so it doesn’t scream? »
Read also: NARRATIVE. Madeleine Marzin, a Trégorroise in the whirlwind of war
A mysterious release
At 7:30 p.m., the father returned to the sisters’ house at Notre-Dame-de-Consolation, and moved into the office. Suddenly he hears a noise behind him, “like that of a booted rider jumping from his horse and falling with both feet”he will testify.
Mother Yvonne-Aimée will recount: “It was my good angel who delivered me and brought me back here. Just when we were being put into groups to go to Germany”. Small detail, all the doors of the house were closed… And his suitcase and his hat left at the Gestapo will be mysteriously transported to his office…
The good father wonders if all this is not a dream, that he will inevitably wake up in his bed and that everything will return to normal. But Sister Saint-Vincent-Ferrier and Sister Sainte-Hélène are there, in front of him, and just as stunned. Sister Sainte-Hélène…
