Print

Mail

wiki links

French resistance heroine of World War II dies aged 94

Lucie Aubrac, one of France's greatest wartime resistance heroes, whose audacious rescue of her husband from a Nazi prison was made into a successful film, has died, her family said. She was 94.

A history teacher who had been active in left wing politics before World War II, she took part in setting up the resistance network in the southeastern region around Lyon after France's defeat by Nazi Germany in 1940.

She helped the network distribute clandestine literature, forge papers and find new identities for fugitives on the run, as well as blow up roads and bridges.

In 1943, she played a major role in the rescue of her husband, Raymond Aubrac, after he was rounded up with other resistance leaders by Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief known as "The Butcher of Lyon."

After tricking the Germans into allowing a visit to her husband, she used the opportunity for the daring rescue plan and although pregnant with her second child, helped ambush a truck in which Raymond was being taken from prison.

In the ensuing shootout, he and other resistance prisoners were freed and the couple escaped before making their way to London in 1944.

She returned to teaching after the war, refusing offers of a political career. But she maintained a close interest in peace and human rights issues and helped transmit the memory of the resistance to a younger generation in France.

She published books on her wartime experiences, including Ils partiront dans l'ivresse (known in English as "Outwitting the Gestapo"). In 1997 her story was turned into a film starring Carole Bouquet.

Her daughter Catherine said she had been in hospital for two-and-a-half months before her death on Wednesday night.

French President Jacques Chirac said Aubrac had been one of the leading lights of the resistance and an emblem of the role of women in the movement.

She received the Legion of Honor, France's highest award, for her work in the Resistance.
This story has been viewed 1544 times.