Prodigious
Prodigious
Rothau
Jean Villeret is one of the last French survivors of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. Like him, there are only a handful left who can testify to what they experienced in the Nazi hell 80 years ago. Faced with the urgent need to make their voices heard, journalist Julien Le Gros chose to gather the testimony of Jean Villeret. Now a centenarian, this former resistance fighter was deported to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on July 7, 1944, as a NN (Nacht und Nebel) prisoner, at the age of 21. He was also deported to Allach, a camp annexed to Dachau, and to Dachau itself. It was there that he was liberated by the Americans on April 29, 1945, and Jean Villeret describes himself as a "miracle worker". Nearly eight decades after the event, he tells Julien Le Gros about his life: growing up in a working-class family in Maisons-Alfort, his entry into the resistance with the Francs-tireurs partisans, his deportation, his social commitment to young people... The book Un jour, nos voix se tairont, published in April 2023 by Editions Alisio, is the fruit of their conversations. The two men also discuss concepts such as the "duty to remember", anti-fascism and the values of the Resistance.
