European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

During the transition period, I was responsible for the security of Raymond Barbet,

who was responsible for the resistance of the railroad workers.

He had organized the insurrection-strike of the railroad workers on August 10th, 1944, sparking the nation-wide insurrection.

I was responsible for his safety, as still collaborators and other dangers were lurking.

I myself went up to the fort on August 28th, August 29th.

We were organized militarily

and I had obtained the rank of lieutenant in the resistance and was given a section of 50 resistance fighters.

We called it the Louis Meunier section in his memory.

What I felt at the liberation? Well, a lot of joy!

It was like a big party.

Even those who hadn’t done anything or maybe taken advantage of the situation now called themselves resistance fighters.

It was a huge joy to have liberated France, even though it wasn’t quite over.

Alsace-Lorraine was still occupied; there was still the submarine basis in the enclave of La Rochelle.

But really it was liberation.

We had the satisfaction of saying that we had won.

Not all of the comrades that had been in the group with us joined the army afterwards.

But we had committed ourselves through the entire war.

I continued because I wanted to avenge Louis. At his funeral we had sworn that we would avenge him.

That meant to fight the Nazis until the end.