Jean-Claude Boyrie (part 1)
Shadows only die twice.
Suddenly, a face that is framed in tears in the glass of the window ...
It was an illusion. The face is a reflection, a strange dormer window, in fact, a TV screen that scrolls in an interview loop. The story of a woman. The tears are those of restrained emotion. This shows that is an ordinary person, between two ages, one that crosses the street, that one meets in the office. Neither starlet, or a politician. It is the daughter of political refugees from Spain.
What she speaks? Of the great retreat of 1939, the "Retirada. Civil War sealed the fate of his family. These events, she has not experienced, of course, she was not born. It only say and repeat what he has repeatedly told. Keep the memory of his own, finding your roots is important. The testimony of the woman relays the parents have disappeared. When they crossed the border, they were twenty years old. Where it
the boundary? Everybody thinks that the crowds have rushed to Perthus or Cerberus. With good reason: these passes where we now jostling to buy alcohol and cigarettes have overlooked the main body of refugees. These were immediately good for the camps: Argelès, The Barcarès, Rivesaltes ... many isolated places, hastily arranged by the then authorities in camps "host" and covered the end of the makeshift huts.
Those who thought they had escaped from hell to purgatory found on the other side.
Others, braver or wiser, had chosen the "narrow gate". In other words, the mule, the "cattle tracks." The move was in the mountains not without danger. A bad fall is quickly made on a steep path, especially when one is not driven. In addition, we saw nothing. Any lighting nuisance would have exposed the fugitives to fire a border patrol. No question of recovering the wounded. Mediators do not take risks, abandoning the unfortunate by the wayside.
Defying the curfew, the parents of the narrator were nightly parties Sant Llorenç de la Muga. (Alt Empurda) Hence, by Albanyà they had ascended the course of the Rio Muga to find themselves at daybreak in French territory, id est: Vallespir somewhere between Coustouges and Lamanère. The focal point of the small group, finally what was left, was the "Conjurador" Serralongue. A strange shrine on a hillock. Mr. Priest was there to prayer to avert the storm when the horizon was covered, obscured by clouds. That day in 1939, the storm was about Spain.
The story could end there, we say more? The woman finished her story. She speaks in a calm voice, it sounds monotonous, she speaks without hatred, without passion. She has no accent either, except that of Toulouse, where she was born and where she lives. That's where his parents settled after the events. She added when even an additional event, just a detail: at 42, his father went into hiding, he joined the partisans, risked his life to him, the stranger, for France. This country that had so badly received during the "Retirada. Sixty five years later, she, her daughter, yet feels French, birth and adoption. Tonight, she wants to testify, you see, only testify ....
A hand clap, clap, clap ...
hammer in solitude, call dull blows of fate. A hand grip on yellowed photos of exhibition panels. Today, 15 September 2007, the camp Rivesaltes relives for Heritage Days. The General Council intends to make a memorial of these barracks, "a place of remembrance." Normal, repentance is a fashionable term, the catechism, we called it an act of contrition. Basically, nothing too disturbing for anyone who still need to know to be recollection (or repent) and for what. Rivesaltes was nothing of the extermination camps. We, we were good French, they did not kill anyone, except by omission, not on purpose. Our brothers were only Spaniards go. They were filled where there was room. Unless they have been herded like cattle in the worst hygienic conditions. They were left to rot, to die of misery and illness, sometimes even killing each other. For, sad to say, among the hordes of refugees, there was settling of scores between rival factions. It must be objective when writing history.
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