When the Cost of Sacrifice Makes Heroes Out of Ordinary Men and Women

By Donna Wichelman

In December 2023’s Heroes, Heroines, and History Blog, I began a series based on the lives of three women and one gentleman from Libourne, France, whom I interviewed about growing up during World War II. I will always consider hearing their first-hand accounts of what it was like to experience life during wartime in France a great privilege.

In this final blog dedicated to Rene Avril, Pirrette Couillandeau, Marie-José Delage, and Josette Melinon, I want to focus on the spirit of perseverance that would not give in to the enemy at their door. Though most of my friends were young, among them were friends, family, and neighbors who remained steadfast in their resolve to win back their country and their freedom, even at the risk of their own lives. As Madam Delage said, “They were people we viewed as ordinary but turned out to be heroes.”

Resistance Groups Wait as the Crowds Gather in Libourne Celebrating Liberation, August 1944
Compliments of Libourne City Archives 

The Resistance Marching at the Liberation of Libourne, August 1944
Compliments of the Libourne City Archives

The Salute of the Flag Just Raised at Town Hall

Compliments of the Libourne City Archives

The Resistance (Maquis in French, meaning “underbrush”), as they called themselves, came from all walks of life, forming networks, hiding precious art reserves, and rescuing men, women, and children from extermination. They hailed from the farmer down the road who passed Jewish men, women, and children across the demarcation line into Free France to the wine baron in Bordeaux who transported Jewish men and women in empty barrels of wine across the border. He was an uncle from Brittany who spied on the Germans in Lorient only to be executed for treason and a mother in a hospital who hid Jewish children under a table covered with sheets. She was a lady who owned a grocery store and shorted German soldiers of food and supplies, and several ladies who hid Jews in their homes until they could get them safe passage. He was a German Benedictine monk whose compassion got him killed for allowing Jewish people to cross the demarcation line and a father who asked a priest to counterfeit a Catholic baptismal certificate to save his Jewish daughter.

Barrels of Wine

Photo 47598059 | Wine Barrels © Natalia Volkova | Dreamstime.com

Josette Melinon's Mother Caring for Patients at Rothchild Hospital While Hiding Jewish Children
Mme Melinon's Archives

Citizens of Libourne Fly Flags at Windows as the Red Cross Poses For their Picture

Compliments of the Libourne City Archives

Arrival of the Demorny Resistance Group After Liberating Castillon in South Dordogne
Compliments of the Libourne City Archives

Rose Valland Hiding Precious Works of Art
Donna's Gallery, May 2023

Mme Melinon as a Three Year Old and Her Father
Compliments of Mme Melinon's Archives

Josette's  Baptismal Certificate
Compliments of Mme Melinon's Archives


Donna with Mme Josette Melinon Today

Donna's Gallery, October 2023

Msr Rene Avril Whose Uncle Spied for the Allies
Donna's Gallery, October 2023

Pirrette Couillandeau and Marie-José Delage Pointing to a Bullet Hole in Mme Delage's Apartment Building
Donna's Gallery, October 2023

A Local Store in France, Not Much Different than A Store in the 1940s
Donna's Gallery, October 2023

Others sabotaged railways, organized escape routes, circulated anti-German fliers, published underground newspapers, sent messages over the radio waves, and planned stealth attacks. Over and over, we hear the stories of bravery and sacrifice despite the risks, even unto death. But why? Who were these heroes? What could possibly motivate anyone to save another at the cost of their own life?

There must be a higher purpose or a more compelling reason to sacrifice, especially for one not of your race or religion. One could say national pride or political freedoms. But in the last blog, we discovered that in a climate of scarcity of resources, some people took advantage of the circumstances, and a black market arose. A few gave up their Jewish neighbors to get a morsel of food. Some who wanted to avoid doing Compulsory Work Service (STO) in Germany joined the Resistance. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 5:7, “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die …” (ESV).

Today, the question of sacrifice falls deeply upon my heart, because it’s Memorial Day weekend in the United States—a day we remember those who gave their lives to secure our country and our freedoms. My father served on a Navy troop transport ship during World War II from 1942 – 1946. Like most people who come home from war, he didn’t like to talk about what he saw, especially during the liberation. Yet, he believed his sacrifice was worth it for the sake of those who fell prey to the whims of a madman.

Donna's Dad, Joseph Chonko, 1942

Studying history not only helps us understand how events unfolded, making our world the way it is today, but it teaches us about ourselves—the character and mettle we’re made of. It also helps us understand where we succeeded or failed and allows us to think critically about how to make better choices. Sadly, we are a country divided in many ways, but the question of sacrifice is still significant to ponder for future generations.

One answer can be found in the book of Luke in the Bible. When a lawyer asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan. As the story goes, three men—a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan—walk by a robbed and severely beaten man, but the only one who stops to help him is the Samaritan. Jesus asks the lawyer, “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same” (Luke 10:30 – 37, NASB 1995).

Addressing his disciples in the book of John, Jesus said, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12 – 13, NASB 1995).

What would you do if a madman in a time of war knocked at your neighbor’s door and you had the power to help him?

How One Aspect of Adolf Hitler's War Machine Devastated Hundreds of Thousands of French Lives

By Donna Wichelman

In December, I began a multi-month series on the Nazi occupation of France during World War Two. Based on the accounts of three lovely women and one gentleman alive as young children during the war—Mme Pierrette Couillandeau, Mme Marie-José Delage, Mme Josette Melinon, and Msr René Avril—we’ll be talking about their personal experiences and how they relate to the occupation between June 1940 and July 1944.

Mme Pierrette Couillandeau and Mme Marie-José Delage, Libourne, France
Donna's Gallery, October 2023

Mme Pierrette Couillandeau and Mme Marie-José Delage were still young children and friends in Libourne when France capitulated to Aldolf Hitler’s German Army in June 1940. Like most French families, they were uneasy about the armistice France signed in 1919, ending the First World War. But while Mme Delage’s father had been wounded during World War I and experienced what we would today call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and therefore wasn't required to serve, Mme Couillandeau’s father had a different experience.

Believing another war was inevitable, France built the Maginot Line, a series of concrete fortifications and weapons installations along their border with Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Italy during the 1930s to counteract an attack by the Germans. But the German Army made a surprise attack north of Saarbrücken in rugged forested terrain where no one expected, allowing them to break through French defenses, storming the country west and southward.

German Army Shows Japanese Officials Maginot Line
Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock Photo

Mme Couillandeau’s father was one of the French troops stationed in a village along the Maginot Line. He shouldn’t have been there. For one thing, he was too old at age thirty-six and had two children with mouths to feed. Moreover, he was a baker, and bakers were protected from military service by a law dating back to 1798 during the French Revolution, which said that the authorities could “commandeer bakeries and …. keep the masses in bread.” But Mme Couillandeau’s father had not declared his status and suffered the consequences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Boulangerie Spécialité Pan Gascon, Since the Reign of Louis XV in 1765
Donna’s Gallery, October 2023

Boulangerie Spécialité Pan Gascon, Baking Bread Since Louis XV in 1765
Donna’s Gallery, October 2023

As the story goes, the men in Mme Couillandeau’s father’s unit took turns watching for German soldiers from the top of a church. One day, her father and one of his buddies were on the lookout but unaware that their unit had pulled out. They were left behind to be caught by the Germans and made prisoners of war. Her father was returned to his family in 1943 at a time when they were liberating the older prisoners and sending the younger ones to work in the Compulsory Work Service (Service du travail obligatoire or STO) for the German government.

STO required the forced enlistment and deportation of French men to Germany to work for the German war effort. Created under the regulations of Vichy France—the puppet government under Marshal Philippe Pétain, Hitler’s Vichy President—between 600,000 and 650,000 men from June 1942 to July 1944 were sent to work camps to compensate for the loss of German manpower as more and more soldiers were needed at the Eastern Front. The German government promised that one French prisoner of war would be released for every three men sent to Germany under the compulsory system. 

In Paris, French men and women being chosen for work in GermanyDeparture of STO workers from the Paris-Nord station in 1943
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-J14405%2C_Paris%2C_Abreise_franz%C3%B6sischer_Kriegsarbeiter_nach_Deutschland.jpg

In the beginning, before STO became compulsory, Pierre Lave, Prime Minister of the Vichy government, sold the enactment of relève as a volunteer work program to help secure the release of French prisoners of war. One French prisoner of war would be released for every three volunteer workers from France. It’s probable the “suggestion” came from Fritz Sauckel in, also known as the “slavemaster of Europe,” who was appointed by the General Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment and charged  in March 1942 with finding labor in Europe. Eighty thousand prisoners of war were exchanged for 24,000 French workers during the Relève program.

But Sauckel’s demands became increasingly demanding, probably because Germany needed labor for their war machine. By April 23, 1943, Sauckel instituted the Compulsory Work Service, requisitioning 120,000 workers in May, 100,000 in June, and another 500,000 in August. However, the numbers were never achieved because the French began evading German compulsory demands by joining the French Resistance. At least 200,000 of them went into hiding.

Members of French Resistance March in Liberation Celebration in Libourne, France
Libourne City Archives

Mme Couillandeau’s father was one of the prisoners of war who was fortunate to come home because of the STO exchange program, though perhaps he could have evaded it altogether if he had declared his status as a baker from the start. Unfortunately, he did not, leaving two bakers at home, an eighteen-year-old young man who had just finished his training and a fifteen-year-old apprentice. Mme Couillandeau’s mother also delivered the bread using a cart she pushed around the community.

Upon Mme Couillandeau’s father’s return, he wanted to take back his old occupation and play cards with friends in a bar on the square in Libourne. But they told him they had made substantial money in the market, and he realized he had been a prisoner of war all the while they had made a lot of money. It was a bitter pill to swallow. He sold his shop and went to Bordeaux.

As I contemplated this real-life story, I was once more struck with the irony of how the war affected Mme Couillandeau's family every bit as much as Mme Delage's. In different ways, both men had become casualties of war, Mme Delage's father to experiencing PTSD during the First World War, and Mme Couillandeau's father to Adolf Hitler's war machine. In both cases, neither theirs nor their families' lives would ever be the same. It's something for all of us to ponder as we consider our contemporary world and those who would use war as a means to conquer and destroy other nations.

Donna worked as a communications professional before turning to full-time writing. Her short stories, essays, and articles have appeared in various inspirational publications. She also has two indie-published Christian contemporary suspense novels in her Waldensian Series, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor. She is working on a World War Two historical slip-time project.

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of her love of history and English literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She loves to

explore peoples and cultures of the world and enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, forgiveness, and redemption in a world that often withholds second chances. You can find out more about Donna Wichelman or sign up for her newsletter at https://donnawichelman.com/