[scotsman]

French WWII resistance hero Raymond Aubrac dies aged 97

BBC News

(excerpt)

'One of the leading figures of the French resistance against the Nazis, Raymond Aubrac, has died aged 97, his family says.

His daughter said he had died at Val de Grace military hospital in Paris on Tuesday evening.

Raymond Aubrac and his late wife Lucie became important members of Jean Moulin's underground Resistance movement in 1942. Aubrac was arrested in June 1943 with Moulin, who died after torture.

In a recent BBC interview, he described how their arrests by the Gestapo at a doctor's surgery in the suburb of Caluire in Lyon had come as "a shock but not a surprise".

Jean Moulin, who had been sent by Gen Charles de Gaulle to organise the underground resistance to Nazi occupation, was tortured, taken to Paris and later died on a train to Berlin. But Raymond Aubrac escaped when a group of fighters including his wife attacked a lorry moving him and other members of the Resistance from jail in Lyon.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk...europe-17674554

[Hieronymous]

RIP

He did the hard thing when many of his countrymen didn't.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I have to believe by that point, France was just about worn out by war. Hard to say what was in their minds back then. Say what you will about the French, but they spilled a lot of blood in their history. After a couple centuries of it, people are going to start asking why.

This post has been edited by Hieronymous: 12 April 2012 - 02:15 AM