This episode of On Culture interacts with the most recent dispatch from The Embassy - The Noble Lie. You may want to check it out before or as you listen to this.
Here is an excerpt …
You may have heard of what we call the noble lie. It can be a bit subjective to define, but, simply, it is a lie for a good purpose. You may have noticed that we have a difficult time agreeing on what ‘good’ means. The classic example of a noble lie is exemplified by the inhabitants of the French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in World War II.
The history of Le Chambon and its environs influenced the conduct of its residents during the Vichy regime and under German occupation. As Huguenot (Calvinist) Protestants, they had been persecuted in France by the Catholic authorities from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and later provided shelter to fellow Protestants escaping discrimination and persecution. Many in Le Chambon regarded the Jews as a “chosen people” and, when they escorted those who were endangered 300 kilometers to the Swiss border, the guides were aware that they were following the same route that their persecuted Huguenot brethren had traveled centuries earlier.
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon - The Holocaust Encyclopedia
A village of 5000 sheltered close to 5000 people, most of them Jews, who were hiding from the Nazis - at great risk to themselves. They were motivated by their Christian beliefs and led by Pastor Andre Trocme of the Reformed Church of France and his wife, Magda, and his assistant, Pastor Edouard Theis.
On June 29, 1943, the German police raided a local secondary school and arrested 18 students. The Germans identified five of them as Jews, and sent them to Auschwitz, where they died. The German police also arrested their teacher, Daniel Trocmé, Pastor Trocmé's cousin, and deported him to the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp, where the SS killed him. Roger Le Forestier, Le Chambon's physician, who was especially active in helping Jews obtain false documents, was arrested and subsequently shot on August 20, 1944, in Montluc prison on orders of the Gestapo.
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon - The Holocaust Encyclopedia
Read the whole thing … and thanks for listening.
On Culture - The Noble Lie