This fall, I spent a couple of weeks in France, visiting my mother who turned 80 this year.
My mother lives in Vinay, a small village in the Vercors region. She was born in 1932 so she was eight years old when the war started. She told me that her parents shielded her from the war; they tried as much as possible to give their four children a happy childhood.
When I first received the photo album, she did not really feel like talking about the war. But bit by bit, she remembers stories and she tells me some things that happened.
She remembered the story about the village doctor. Village doctors suffered greatly during the war because, following their oath, they would treat everybody and that included the people belonging to the Résistance.
The young doctor in Vinay during the war was called Docteur Dupré. Dr. Dupré miraculously escaped death. After being chloroformed in his home in November 1943, he woke up in a ditch, covered in blood. He was allegedly shot in the neck, the bullet had crossed the neck without causing any dramatic consequence.
He managed to slowly crawl back to the village. After that, he went in hiding and disappeared. My mother told me that when the war ended, he was able to resume his practice but that for the rest of his life, he kept a crooked jaw and a crooked face, a remnant of the attack.
I remember Dr. Dupré as an old doctor in the 70’s; he lived next to my grand-parents ‘house. He died long ago. I had never heard that story before.
Then my mother told me that the same thing happened to the doctor in St. Marcellin, the next village. His name was Docteur Carrier. He was killed during the war, assassinated by the Gestapo. The town of St. Marcellin has erected a monument in his honor. I was able to take a picture of it.
It is quite amazing how no place was spared in France. Everywhere, something horrible happened.