The Sorrow and the Pity Page #13

with parachutes from London

with the aim of preventing

the passage of German troops.

And we sent Denis Rake

as a radio operator.

"The Mont-Mouchet,"

Iike most of the Maquis groups

consisted of members

from the forced labor group

which was based in Auvergne.

What we didn't know was that

on the night Denis Rake arrived in France,

the Germans made an all out attack

and Denis Rake landed

smack in the middle of the battle.

He spent the night in a tree,

which he climbed down the next day

in order to send us a message

saying he'd arrived rather unexpectedly

and that all was well.

Gaspard was in charge of the Maquis.

I must say that I'm very proud

of my pseudonym "Gaspard"

because friends, as you saw earlier

wouldn't have called me Mr. Coulaudon.

Coulaudon is a well-known name,

but in my job, it doesn't matter.

It's an everyday name 30 years later.

Our mission was to find a Maquis

led by a man named Gaspard.

-In Mont-Mouchet?

-That's right.

He was an incredible man,

and he put up an impressive fight.

But he was greedy:

greedy for glory, greedy for everything.

We had the feeling

that Gaspard had won the approval,

the love and affection of the people

the patriots that followed him,

an unquestionably great leader.

This is where the Resistance

began in Auvergne.

This is where we formed our first group.

Back then, we had a dog

we had named de Gaulle.

De Gaulle latched on to us

and stuck with us during both winters.

What is that monument?

It was built

in memory of our first troop to die.

When the Germans surrounded the village,

we couldn't get in because of the snow.

We were all on expedition,

except four young men

who stayed behind

because they weren't healed.

And these four young men

were taken by the Germans.

Early that morning,

they followed the less snowy train tracks

checked out the lay of the land

and headed to our cottage,

thinking they'd get us all.

There were four young men, one of whom

came out barefoot in the snow,

a 19-year-old boy from Volvic,

a village we'll see later.

We called him Milamon.

A relative of his, Jean Lain

tried to machine-gun down the Germans,

who then killed him.

We found his body

strewn across the snow.

He died immediately.

A second boy was killed in his bed.

He didn't even have time to get up

before being taken.

There were two young men left.

One hid in a trunk, he was so small.

He was 19 years old.

-What was the boy's name again?

-Chevalier.

No, it was 15 grams.

15 grams or four pounds.

15 grams:
That was all the boy weighed.

He was also taken here.

One thing I find appalling is when

people who were Ptain supporters

come up and tell me

what they did for the Resistance.

Sometimes, it's unreal. "Oh Mr. Gaspard,

"if only you knew what we did,

what I did for the Resistance...."

Go ahead, pal, tell me all about it.

I try to stay calm. I'm a salesman

and I want to sell my product.

The company doesn't pay me

to do politics and pick fights.

So sometimes I find myself obliged

to listen to a song and dance

of some guy who shows me a drawer

and gets his wife to confirm

that there was indeed a revolver

in that drawer during the war

a revolver which he was supposedly

ready to use on the Germans.

Only he never actually used it.

History doesn't lie.

As you know,

I was an N.C.O. in the French army.

I can see your question coming.

Didn't I skip a few ranks?

But what could I have done?

In fact, one man, a friend of mine

was saying in the car earlier,

"Didn't you go to school?" No, I laughed.

The best I did, in the words

of the former mayor of Combronde

was the school of crime,

which is nothing more

than our mandatory answer

to those who were killing our friends.

-There's one thing you're forgetting.

-What?

When de Gaulle, from London,

invited every French officer,

every last lazy good-for-nothing

to join the Maquis,

if they had answered his call...

If they had, the Resistance

could have avoided certain mistakes.

They were hiding in the woods

like children from the Germans.

They didn't want to work for them.

These admirable patriots

could definitely have used

the help and leadership

of the French officers

who were busy

warming their feet by the fire...

Don't try to deny it.

I know many people who are guilty.

That's the truth.

Many people I knew just stayed at home.

I asked them, at the time,

why they didn't follow their friends' lead.

They claimed they didn't know

how to get in touch with the Resistance.

Somehow, an old fool like me

knew how and they didn't.

If we could do it again,

would you still make me a colonel,

or would you bring me down

to staff sergeant or adjutant?

If I've understood correctly,

Colonel Gaspard wants to know if

25 years down the road,

you'd still be willing to trust him.

Exactly.

I believe that it's because of men like him

that we accomplished something.

No thanks to those who stayed home.

-Mark my words.

-This isn't a referendum here.

He mixes everything up.

I'm trying to talk politics.

But it's what I wanted to hear.

Today, a new type of neo-Nazism

is slowly rearing its ugly head

which is why I feel it's important

we participate in these interviews.

We said "nyet" because we thought

and continue to think

that we must not mix things up,

as the veterans of Verdun have done.

Those men were heroes,

but they've been caught in a trap.

I believe there's a risk

that either Nazism will re-emerge,

or some form of Nazism

under a different name.

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

Hang on a minute.

There's one thing we often tend to forget.

The Germans were Nazis. Fine.

But were the French

any better than the Nazis?

-Stop it.

-I had a woman shot,

a 60-year-old woman

who had sold me to the Gestapo.

She sold me for money.

So did my son, for thirty pieces of silver.

The people in Auvergne,

in a country where we failed

Iike in Brittany, Vercors, or anywhere else

who wanted to find the Resistance

had no problem finding it,

if that person really wanted to fight,

or even to fight in the underground

without necessarily going all out.

Our goal, first and foremost,

was to attempt

to create a climate

of psychological fear for the Germans

to keep them in a state of fear

to cut off communications lines,

and hopefully blow everything up.

That was it.

The goal wasn't to kill the Germans.

Why bother killing

10, 20, 50, or even 100 Germans?

Come on. Please. Not at all.

Our goal was basically to prevent them...

If you don't mind,

I'd like to add something.

Our goal was never to be

an army facing another army.

And yet, what eventually happened

due to ever-increasing enthusiasm

was that we ended up

with 10,000 armed men.

Allow me to give an example.

A detachment of our troops near Clermont

passes in front of 20-odd peasants

digging up potatoes.

Suddenly, they all drop their tools,

dash towards their guns

and proceed to shoot 14 of our men dead.

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