Two Resistance operatives met, for a night, in a hideout near Lyon, France, in 1944. They made love, and parted. Bob survived the war. Paulette died in a German labor camp.
Now, more than 60 years after the one-night stand, a court in Nancy, France, has authorized DNA tests to ascertain whether a man whom Bob has never met but who bears his name is his son.
The story of the two Robert Nants -- one a survivor of birth in a camp, the other a Resistance hero -- has so enchanted French lawyers and judges that they admit they are dreading the outcome of the tests.
"Whatever happens, I'm going to take care of him," said Bob, 83.
"All I can do is hope," said Robert, 61.
Robert Nant, who is unmarried and earns 400 euros (US$525) a month as a hostel cleaner in Nancy, first learned of Bob in 1975 in a newspaper article about Vichy regime militia leader Paul Touvier. He was staying in a Strasbourg hotel and wrote to his namesake in Chambery.
"I drove to Strasbourg and called in on the hotel but Robert Nant had left two days earlier," Bob said.
Bob asked friends in the police to trace Robert. Last year, he hired a private detective, who traced him to Nancy. Both Roberts decided to take DNA tests which, in France, can only be ordered by a court.
"Both men are on legal aid so there is no financial motive," said Bob's lawyer, Olivier Fernex de Mongex. "Helping Bob is my way of paying tribute to a man who did so much for this country."
Robert Nant's lawyer, Laurence Charbonnier, said the DNA application had taken a long time to come to court because "the legal aid application said Robert Nant versus Robert Nant, so the clerk threw it away."
"I knew my background was complex but at least I knew I was born on 19 March 1945," Robert Nant said. "I was brought up among 11 other children by adoptive parents called Nant, which is a fairly common name in Savoie. They called me `bastard' and `Boche'' [`Kraut']. When I was 18, it transpired that I didn't have any papers. A social worker arranged for me to be registered."
Fernex de Mongex said that the French authorities discovered in 1968 that a child had been born at Schkopau labor camp, near Leipzig, on March 19, 1945.
The mother died and three weeks later the camp was liberated. It will never be known how Paulette -- in a camp where life expectancy was three months -- managed to secure her child's survival and register his name.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate