On a recent trip to Southern France, my wife and I learned of a small French town that saved thousands of refugees, most of them Jewish children, from the Gestapo during the Nazi regime. This poem describes but a small part of their efforts to save those innocent people.
The Heroic Town of Le Chambon, France
It was a small mountain village
In an extraordinary time
When simply being a Jew
Was a Nazi capital crime.
The citizens of Le Chambon
Were never ordinary.
They did what they knew was right,
While always being wary
Of the dangers that their actions brought
From an evil administration,
That somehow captured allegiance
From an entire sovereign nation.
The citizens of the town,
Led by their local minister,
Pledged their very lives
To oppose the plan most sinister,
To round up all the Jews
The German troops could find,
And send them to a certain death,
Adult nor child left behind.
The village gave safe refuge
To five-plus thousand souls,
In this little mountain town,
Thwarting Nazi goals.
Most of those they saved were kids,
And most of them were Jews.
When someone sought their help
The town folk didn’t choose.
They helped all who came
Seeking their assistance:
Like anti-Nazi Germans and
Those of the French Resistance.
They didn’t ask their religion
Or political circumstance,
But gave each one of them
A desperate, final chance
To avoid Nazi capture
And concentration camps,
To maybe have their skin made
Into shades for table lamps.
They sheltered them in private homes,
Hotels and many a farm.
Any place that they could find
To keep them safe from harm.
They printed false ration cards
And phony identification,
And escorted some to Switzerland,
A friendly neutral nation.
When Nazis got suspicious
The Pastor had to run.
His wife provided leadership
Until the war was done.
The villagers knew that they
Faced certain death each day
If one of their own citizens
Should give their pact away.
But no one ever told.
They kept their silence true.
The town saved several thousand lives.
The Nazis never really knew.
When the minister’s wife was asked
About their courage and their stealth,
She said it’s not about other people,
But all about yourself.
Sources: Solene, local tour guide in Tournon sur Rhône, August 31, 2023; Facing History & Ourselves, “Le Chambon: A Village Takes a Stand,” last updated May 12, 2020; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Le Chambon-sur-Lignon,” accessed Sep.22, 2023; Personal visit to Dachau Concentration Camp, 1963.
Note: For more stories in meter and rhyme about heroes see Patriotic Poems by Lee Austin, available through Amazon.
My Poetry That Rhymes 