What do you think of this tribute to a Second World War hero?

[Julie07]

' Just as Leclerc entered the Invalides, with his cortege of exaltation in the African sun and the battles of Alsace, enter here, Jean Moulin, with your terrible cortege. With those who died in the cellars without speaking, like you; and even, perhaps more atrociously, those who died after having spoken; with all the striped and shaven heads of the concentration camps, with the last stumbling body of the dreadful lines of Night and Fog, finally beaten to death with rifle butts; with the eight thousand French women who never returned from the penal colonies, with the last woman who died in Ravensbrück for having given shelter to one of ours.
Enter, with the people born of the shadows and who disappeared with them – our brothers in the Order of the Night...

Commemorating the anniversary of the Liberation of Paris, I said: “Listen tonight, youth of my country, to these anniversary bells that will ring like those fourteen years ago. May you, this time, truly hear them: they will ring for you.”

Today's tribute calls only for the song that is about to rise now, the Chant of the Partisans, which I heard murmured like a secret anthem, then chanted in the mists of the Vosges and the forests of Alsace, mingled with the lost cries of the sheep from the Tabors, when the bazookas of Corrèze advanced to meet Rundstedt's tanks, once again launched against Strasbourg.
Listen today, youth of France, to what was for us the Song of Misery. It is the funeral march of these ashes before us.

Next to those of Carnot with the soldiers of Year II, those of Victor Hugo with the Miserables, those of Jaurès watched over by Justice, let them rest with their long procession of disfigured shadows.

Today, youth, may you think of this man as if you were reaching out your hands toward his poor, shapeless face on that final day, to those lips that had not spoken; that day, it was the face of France…"

André Malrau paying tribute to Jean Moulin, Second World War resistance fighter

[Anonymous]

There was an old woman in my neighbourhood who died a few years ago who lost her husband who was in the French foreign legion and he died in 1940 fighting the nazis, she lost their two children in the blitz. She left her factory job and joined the WRAF and later left to join SOE where as she was fluent in French and German was trained as a radio operator and given weapons, parachute and commando training.
She was parachute into france a year before D-Day. 3 months later she was involved in an operation that had gone wrong and her group was being hunted by the SS. To allow her group to escape she held the SS up with her Sten gun killing three, she was shoot 3 times but survived only to be captured, detained and tortured by the Gestapo. She never gave up anything to the Gestapo and they threw her in a concentration camp were she nearly died of starvation but looked after those there. She survived and returned to post war Britain.
She never married or had anymore kids and worked the rest of her life as a school teacher. For decades no one knew about her ww2 heroics as the SOE likes were sealed and those involved bound under the national secrets act to silence.

[Lliam]

I' unfamiliar with Jean Moulin but I honor all those who fought in the resistance against Nazism. They were heroes.

Today there are similar, if not even more horrific, state sponsored crimes happening in Palestine. The resistance fighters there deserve similar honor and support for resisting sadistic genocide by the Zionist entity.

[Shiprex]

It sounds very French understated stoic and patriotic about someone who dedicated their service to the nation and not to themselves. I doubt there are many folk like this nowadays.

[Julie07]

You got the message perfectly. In reality the tribute was much longer but I put the end.

[Shiprex]

I have a lot of time for this kind of person who is selfless and made sacrifices for others and not personal gain. It's just a sad fact that in the same time there were millions of faceless men who also gave everything in the belief that they were helping others who needed them to do this.

[Julie07]

I agree with you entirely. Malraux, through the figure of Jean Moulin, pays tribute to all the forgotten heroes.

[Shiprex]

Individually it would be great and anyone who dedicates themselves to do this has huge respect for me. Same with the people who look after war cemeteries. Those people are silent angels who deserve all the riches in the world.

[Julie07]

In vain. On the day when, at Fort Montluc in Lyon, after having him tortured, the Gestapo agent handed him something to write with since he could no longer speak, Jean Moulin drew a caricature of his torturer. For the terrible aftermath, let us simply listen to the plain words of his sister: "His role was over, and his ordeal began. Humiliated, savagely beaten, his head bleeding, his organs shattered, he reached the limits of human suffering without ever betraying a single secret — though he knew them all."

[Shiprex]

That he was STILL able to stand against his enemy shows true gallic strength and a passion that shows a patriot is here.

[Julie07]

Yes haha. I would have liked to share the video of the speech but there are no English subtitles.

[Shiprex]

Ai would be able to do that I think these days.

[Julie07]

If I can get the ia to translate it, I'll send you the video.

[Shiprex]

Thanks, it's very inspiring when you hear about particular individuals contributions against tyrants

[Dongie]

I'm not sure but I think you speak of the French Resistance. And of Jews taken from France. I think of Robert Clary. If you're wondering he played Louis Lebeau on Hogan's Heroes. He was either put in or was freed at 14. He lost his family there.

[Anonymous]

He was one of the greatest resistance fighters in France.

[Unycorn]

War knows no winners and no heroes.

[Makeushiver]

Ineffably stylish regardless of setting