Tribute to Bishop Théas (2/2 article sent in two parts)
At the end of the conference, a plaque of remembrance, on which is engraved the full text of Bishop Théas’ letter, was unveiled in the hall of the school by the students.
“Painful and sometimes horrible scenes are taking place in France, without France being responsible for them. In Paris, tens of thousands of Jews were treated with the most barbaric savagery. heartbreaking: families are torn apart, men and women are treated like a vile herd and sent to an unknown destination, with the prospect of the gravest dangers I raise the indignant protest of the Christian conscience and I proclaim that all men , Aryans or non-Aryans, are brothers because created by the same God; that men, whatever their race or their religion, are entitled to the respect of individuals and States. Yet the current anti-Semitic measures are a contempt for the dignity human rights, a violation of the most sacred rights of the person and of the family. May God comfort and strengthen those who are unjustly persecuted! May he grant the world true and lasting peace, founded on justice and charity!”
As a prelude to the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv roundup, a tribute to Bishop Pierre-Marie Théas took place Monday evening at the high school which has borne his name since 2008, in the presence of Bishop Bernard Ginoux, Bishop of Montauban, representatives International Amitiés André-Malraux, elected officials, and two hundred guests.
A conference by Father de la Teysonnière recalled how, during the Second World War, Mgr Théas had courageously refused the unspeakable, like Marie-Rose Gineste, secretary of the bishopric who had become a heroine of the Resistance. This testimony of life has a particular resonance at a time when at the gates of Europe, once again, people are fleeing the atrocities of war.
In Paris, between July 16 and 17, 1942, 13,000 foreign Jews were rounded up, concentrated at the Vélodrome d’Hiver, interned in the Drancy camp for the men, and in the Loiret camps for the women and the 4,000 children. then deported.
In Septfonds, in the unoccupied zone, on August 26 and September 2, 295 Jews, including 26 children living in Tarn-et-Garonne and Lot, gathered at the Judes camp, were delivered to the Hitlerites by the Vichy government and deported. to Auschwitz.
On August 26, 1942, Bishop Théas let his indignation burst out and wrote a letter of protest against the deportation of Jews and anti-Semitic measures. He summons Miss Gineste: “Letter to be urgently mimeographed and sent to all priests”. She carried it through the department on a bicycle, and this letter was read on August 30 in all the pulpits of the diocese. Arrested by the Germans in June 1944, Bishop Théas was imprisoned in Frontstalag 122 in Compiègne before being released on August 25. Back in his diocese, he opposed a bloody purge. In 1947, he left his diocese of Montauban for that of Tarbes and Lourdes. Eight after his death, in 1985, the State of Israel awarded him the title of “Righteous Among the Nations”. His pastoral letter, as well as Mlle Gineste’s bicycle, are now kept at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem.
At the end of the conference, a plaque of remembrance, on which is engraved the full text of Bishop Théas’ letter, was unveiled in the hall of Théas high school by the students.
a letter for history
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-Here is the letter written by Bishop Théas in 1942, a letter that his secretary Marie-Rose Gineste brought by bicycle to all the parishes of the diocese and which was read at the office on August 30, 1942. “Painful and sometimes horrible scenes are taking place in France, without France being responsible for them. In Paris, tens of thousands of Jews were treated with the most barbaric savagery. heartbreaking: families are torn apart, men and women are treated like a vile herd and sent to an unknown destination, with the prospect of the gravest dangers I raise the indignant protest of the Christian conscience and I proclaim that all men , Aryans or non-Aryans, are brothers because created by the same God; that men, whatever their race or their religion, are entitled to the respect of individuals and States. Yet the current anti-Semitic measures are a contempt for the dignity human rights, a violation of the most sacred rights of the person and of the family. May God comfort and strengthen those who are unjustly persecuted! May he grant the world true and lasting peace, founded on justice and charity!”
