Farewell
and many thanks to You Raymond
Aubrac!
Paris
under a clement sky but still coldly with the sun also wanting to
send its rays to honor Raymond Aubrac during this Monday, April 16,
2012. In La Cour des Invalides official music can be heard as in the
great days of solemn celebration. France in general and Paris in
particular emphasized the impact of Raymond and Lucie Aubrac
qualified as a mythical couple whose memory will be kept alive in
the heart of French collective reminiscence. Four candidates for the
presidential election, many French and foreigners personalities, the
national and international press and all his friends of the
Resistance have listened with great interest the two speeches. Two
personalities of Free France and the Fight against the Nazi
occupation, Jean-Louis Cremieux-Brilhac and Jacques Vistel, were in
turn paid tribute to the great representative of the Resistance.
They have joined the memory
of
his wife Lucie Aubrac, who died in 2007. She shared his fighting in
the Resistance and organized herself the operation to free him after
his arrest in 1943. At the request of the family, eager to avoid any
recovery policy in this election time, the incumbent president has
not spoken to the event .
After
hearing both speeches, it seems useful to add the special and
intimate ties that Raymond and Lucie reserved to Vietnam and the
Vietnamese not only through their correspondence but also in personal
contacts throughout the interwar and reconstruction periods of
Vietnam that ensued. He was also a great actor in strengthening
friendly relations between Vietnam and France. Vietnam has decorated
him as well Prof. Henry Van Regemorter, Prof. Monique Chemillier-
Gendreau and Dr. Louis Raymondon, the Friendship Medal on March 13,
2001 in Paris. Then about a month ago, the President of the RSVN gave
his signature for giving to Raymond Aubrac the Ho Chi Minh Medal.
But as he was suffering, the Ambassador of Vietnam in Paris could not
hold the ceremony. Moreover, during a lunch time in his apartment in
the 13th arrondissement of Paris, Raymond told us all the events when
President Ho Chi Minh was their host in 1946 at
Soisy-sous-Montmorency. He recalled especially the September 12, 1946
breakfast time with General Raoul Salan in their home. This meeting
was the last where, Raoul Salan warned Ho Chi Minh against the war
and requested him not to make irreversible the misfortune that will
occurred for Vietnamese people.
Going
on, we reviewed the hours of talks in Paris at the Avenue Kleber
conference room, including January 24, 1973, when Mr. Le Duc Tho,
Head of the North Vietnam delegation for Paris peace talks, presented
to the international press highlights of the future agreement on the
cessation of hostilities in Vietnam. Always eager to help us for
better understanding the unique relationship that the couple had with
the family Vo Van Sung, the first and last Ambassador of République
Démocratique du Vietnam before the changing to the République
Socialiste du Vietnam. Raymond showed us the family album where he
was telling memories of dating. In Hanoi, we have also seen the same
faces in the family album when Hong and Sung talked about the
favorite Aubrac’s meals during their visits to Vietnam.
Moreover,
there were intense emotions when Pierre Jerosme met during the day of
the funeral showed a photocopy of a meeting with high school youth
where three former Liberation-Nord, testified. They were Mr.Maurice
Rébillon, deported to Buchenwald (1943), Loiret departmental
Secretary of the National Federation of Deported Resistance; Raymond
Aubrac, National Liberation created by Jean Moulin and Deputy
arrested by Klaus Barbie (head of the Gestapo in Lyon) on June 21,
1943 at Caluire. During a transfer Raymond Aubrac was released by a
group consisting frank and driven by his wife Lucie and Mr. Pierre
Jérosme, former Liberation-North (Loiret 1943) and Group Chief scrub
floors in the Forest of Orleans (1944 ). Such interventions in
schools and colleges to explain the struggle of the Resistance have
certainly permeated the youth to untertain the knowledge of the
History of France.
Raymond
and Lucie Aubrac, witnesses of the shadow will remain forever as a
loving reverence rooted in the memory of the Vietnamese here and
there.
When
we pick a fruit, we must never forget the one who planted the tree
and it is sometimes better to simply light a candle than curse the
darkness .
