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 .
