Marie-Jeanne, 91 Printemps, is direct: “The Germans knocked on the door of the house and we had to leave. It was in Saint-Julien-lès-Metz. “We left by train. We were greeted with La Marseillaise at Dijon station: there, we knew we were at home, in France! At the time, we could just as easily have been directed to Germany, it was my mother’s fear ”.
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For Marie-Jeanne and her family, the terminus stopped at Bort-les-Orgues, in Corrèze. A five-year exile that the nonagenarian had not mentioned for a long time and which has just resurfaced as if it were yesterday, at the Sainte-Madeleine nursing home where she has been housed for a while.
Other boarders also have their own stories to tell. Francette recalls that “the Germans requisitioned the family home in Kédange.
In Moyeuvre, “my family was resistant to the occupier. We were deported to Silesia. In the camp, we hid potatoes under the bed, ”says Yvette in turn.
Marie-Claude, from Bousse, was deported to Vienne. “My mother made the brioche on Sundays: there were people at home! “
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RAM
These stories, filled with details, emerged from oblivion after the nursing home hosted the exhibition organized by the National Order of Merit on the evacuation of the Moselle to the South-West, in 1939. “The story served as a pretext to bring together the elders on a common project. Never has an event won so much sharing, ”slips the director, Laurence Herr. Forty residents spoke of this period of their life in a peaceful manner. “Things have been brought about smoothly; first there was a movie, The big mop , for lightness; then the discovery of the exhibition ”, explains a facilitator. Today, these little bits of intact memories are recorded in a collection. “We don’t yet know what to do with it…” Edit it? And why not !
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