40 years ago — March 17, 1980
“During the first four years of the 1940s, a little Huguenot village perched on a plateau on the mountains of southeastern France saved the lives of more than five thousand refugees while the Germans were occupying France, and while the SS troops were stationed near them, ready to wipe out what many called ‘that nest of Jews in Huguenot country.’ … If goodness involves not only following the negative commandment against killing, but also obeying the positive injunction to be your brother’s keeper by preventing others from killing, no matter what the risk, then the people of Le Chambon were of the very substance of goodness, for they killed no one, and hated no one, in those murderous times, and they saved people (mostly children at first, and later whole families) who were marked for the extermination camps.
“About a year ago I wrote a book, ‘Lest Innocent Blood be Shed,’ to tell the story of how and why these French Protestants endangered their lives and exacerbated their poverty by sheltering, in some cases for years, the most hated enemies of the Third Reich, the Jews. I am a student and teacher of ethics, of theories about good and evil, and I found in the story of this village an embodiment of goodness.”
From “A village full of goodness” by Phillip P. Hallie (RNS)
