The General's Niece

by Paige Bowers

  “A handful of wretches”: Charles de Gaulle, speech to French nationals at London’s Albert Hall, November 15, 1941, Charles de Gaulle Foundation, www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l-homme/accueil/discours/pendant-la-guerre-1940-1946/discours-de-l-albert-hall-londres-11-novembre-1941.php.

  “There was a movement”: Anise Postel-Vinay, author interview, January 9, 2016, Paris.

  Another body of research: Some of this work includes “Le programme du CNR dans la dynamique de construction de la nation résistante,” Histoire@Politique no. 24, 2014, 5–23, and “Les comportements des civils face aux aviateurs tombés en France, en Angleterre et en Allemagne, 1940–1945,” in Les comportements collectifs en France et dans l’Europe allemande, ed. Peter Laborie and François Marcot (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015). Both pieces are by Claire Andrieu, professor of contemporary history at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

  Moët-Agniel, for example, began sneaking: Michèle Moët-Agniel, author interview, January 9, 2016, Paris.

  One German prosecutor mused: Margaret Collins Weitz, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940–1945 (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), loc. 18.

  Charming smiles concealed: Robert Gildea wrote about how easy it was for women to move around without suspicion in Fighters in the Shadows, 145.

  “I don’t like the word heroism”: Geneviève de Gaulle spoke at length with interviewer Caroline Glorion about this in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz: Résistances (Paris: Plon, 1997), 11.

  Geneviève’s life was marked by (and the dialogue that follows): Michèle Moët-Agniel and Anise Postel-Vinay, author interview, January 9, 2016, Paris.

  Chapter 1: The Road to Resistance

  Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz shared her memories of Philippe Pétain’s June 17, 1940, radio address with journalist Caroline Glorion in the late 1990s. She told Glorion that that was the day she “took up the proverbial cross” in her heart and vowed to fight back. “I felt like I had been burned by a hot iron,” she told Glorion. A few years later, Anthonioz admitted to filmmaker Maia Weschler that although she wanted to do battle, she didn’t know where to begin. Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 20–21. Weschler, Sisters in Resistance (Women Make Movies, 2000).

  The original version of Pétain’s speech employed the more awkward request to “try to stop fighting.” The language was tightened up for the broadcast so that there could be no mistaking that Pétain wanted the country to quit. Pétain, “Discours du 17 juin 1940 du maréchal Pétain,” Charles de Gaulle Foundation website. You can also listen to the speech in its entirety on YouTube by searching for “Petain, June 17.”

  There are several accounts of the Fall of France, many of them focused on the specific battles and military maneuvers used within that devastating five-week conflict. One of the best and most recent accounts of that fall is captured in the first chapter of Ronald Rosbottom’s fine book on the occupation, When Paris Went Dark. Filmmaker Maia Weschler was able to capture the country’s swift fall in her documentary Sisters in Resistance, with vintage footage of grown men crying in the streets as they watch the Nazis roll into the capital in tanks.

  tired and tangled ribbons: “French Are Still Fighting: Armies Cut into Four Ribbons a Spokesman Asserts,” New York Times, June 18, 1940.

  government fled Paris for Bordeaux . . . Reynaud resigned . . . Pétain replaced him: Paxton, Vichy France, 6.

  Almost four million people fled the Paris area alone during the Battle of France, leaving the capital to look like an empty movie set, according to several memoirists. There are countless stories in newspapers about the plight of refugees during that time. Among them: “Refugee Migration Is Spur to Red Cross,” New York Times, May 21, 1940; “Fate of Boulogne Not Yet Clarified,” New York Times, May 25, 1940; “Tours Is Jammed; Refugees Pitiful,” New York Times, June 14, 1940; “French Go to Switzerland; First Refugees Arrive from the Upper Doubs Valley,” New York Times, June 17, 1940; “The International Situation; the Plight of France,” New York Times, June 17, 1940. Ronald Rosbottom in When Paris Went Dark wrote that the exodus forged “a profound sense of embarrassment, self-abasement, guilt and felt loss of masculine superiority that would mark the years of the Occupation” (loc. 716).

  Geneviève’s reaction to Pétain’s call for an armistice is captured by Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz (20–21), and in historian Frédérique Neau-Dufour’s biography Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz: L’autre de Gaulle (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2004), 47. Neau-Dufour’s account is based on extra documentary footage taken by Weschler and stored in the Charles de Gaulle Foundation’s archives at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, France.

  Two hours later, the German advance: The BBC’s website includes a British soldier’s clippings from French newspapers about the bombing of Rennes, the details of which are included in this passage. “Rennes, Brittany, France, June 1940: After Dunkirk, Escaping to the West,” Sergeant George Fitzpatrick via the BBC, December 3, 2005.

  The de Gaulle background comes from a richly detailed biography of the family written by French journalist Christine Clerc. Les de Gaulle: Une Famille Française (Paris: Le Grand Livre du Mois, 2000) draws from forty interviews with surviving members of the family, including ones with Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz and her brother, Roger de Gaulle. The specific information about the de Gaulle line prior to Henri de Gaulle can be found on page 20. Details about Henri and Jeanne de Gaulle can be found on pages 28–52.

  “Many years after this war”: Letter from Charles de Gaulle to Rémy Roure, cited by Edmond Pognon in De Gaulle et l’armée (Paris: Plon-Espoir, 1976), 53.

  “if [Charles] wishes”: Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 1890–1944 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), 10.

  For details about Xavier de Gaulle, his courtship of Germaine Gourdon, their marriage, and the family’s early life, see Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 13–19; Neau-Dufour, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 19–42.

  Neau-Dufour writes about Germaine and Xavier’s brief time in Saint-Jean-de-Valériscle in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 25–26. The town’s history and heritage came from its website: http://saintjeandevaleriscle.com. Background on the geography and the area’s onions came from www.cevennes-tourisme.fr/uk/il4-cevennes,discover_p14-geography.aspx and www.cevennes-tourisme.fr/uk/il4-cevennes,activites_p191-sweet-onion-of-the-cevennes.aspx. Christine Clerc writes about Xavier’s joy in the landscapes and Geneviève’s later disappointment in them in Les de Gaulle, 105–6.

  See Neau-Dufour, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 26–39, for an account of the de Gaulle family’s time in the Saarland.

  See Clerc, Les de Gaulle, 118–20 and 184–86, for an account of how Germaine’s unexpected death impacted the family. Also see Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 15–16, and Neau-Dufour, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 35–37. Geneviève also wrote about the death, the train ride to the funeral, and her grandmother’s embroidered daisies in her memoir The Dawn of Hope: A Memoir of Ravensbrück (New York: Arcade, 1999), Kindle ed., loc. 159–62.

  Clerc wrote about Jeanne’s visits to the Saarland to help and how it helped Geneviève get to know her grandmother in Les de Gaulle, 124.

  Geneviève wrote about the first Christmas without her mother in Dawn of Hope, loc. 198–202.

  Clerc wrote about the interactions between Charles and Xavier de Gaulle after Germaine’s death in Les de Gaulle, 124–25, and then about Anne, 125–26.

  Glorion wrote about Geneviève’s love of school and introduction to Mein Kampf in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 16–17, and Neau-Dufour did the same in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 37–38.

  Lacouture spins a fascinating tale about how and why de Gaulle believed tanks would lead the way in modern warfare. It ends with Pétain publicly dismissing his ideas and Germany studying them intently. Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 129–38.

  For background on the Saarland plebiscite, see “The Saar Struggle,” New York Times, Novembe
r 20, 1934. For details on the Saar vote, see “Saar Is Occupied by Foreign Army,” New York Times, December 23, 1934; “Postponing Vote Weighed in Saar,” New York Times, January 6, 1935; “Fair Vote Predicted by Miss Wambaugh: Woman Adviser on Plebiscite in Saar Declares League Will Prove Its Effectiveness,” New York Times, January 13, 1935; “Jews ‘Advised to Leave’ Saar,” New York Times, January 13, 1935; “Braun Threatens Protest,” New York Times, January 14, 1935; “Frick Ready to Take Command of Saar; Little Mercy Seen for Reich Emigres,” New York Times, January 15, 1935; “The Council’s Resolution,” New York Times, January 18, 1935.

  Glorion writes about Xavier de Gaulle’s failed attempts to get locals to vote against the Third Reich and his return home on the day of the vote in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 17–18.

  Xavier de Gaulle and his kin: Neau-Dufour, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 38–39.

  Back in Germany Adolf Hitler celebrated the French exit: “Sees Way Clear for Amity,” New York Times, March 2, 1935.

  Chapter 2: The Call

  Neau-Dufour wrote about the family’s return to France, Geneviève and Jacqueline’s time in Metz, and their relations with their extended relatives in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 38–39.

  Glorion talked to Geneviève about her time with her Uncle Charles in Metz in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 18–19.

  Neau-Dufour wrote about the death of Geneviève’s sister in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 40–41.

  Clerc spoke with Geneviève about the funeral and her father’s and uncles’ discussion about the Munich Accord in Les de Gaulle, 143.

  Xavier was called up to serve as a reservist: Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 20.

  If there was to be a last stand in France: Paxton, Vichy France, 6.

  Glorion explained how Xavier awaited orders in the three-room house with his family in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 20–21. In this passage, Geneviève emerges as the diligent caretaker and comforter of her ailing grandmother. Clerc, meanwhile, recounted how Geneviève’s grandmother fled Le Havre to see her sons before war separated them in Les de Gaulle, 152. See the following link for background on the bombing of Le Havre: www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=shtasel-memories.pdf&site=15.

  See Lacouture’s De Gaulle: The Rebel for an explanation of the Brittany strategy, known as the “Breton redoubt,” on pages 189–90. De Gaulle then bids his wife and daughters farewell and warns them to leave at the first sign of trouble on page 201. Lacouture describes how Yvonne and the family got out of France beginning on page 257.

  Various sources include the story of the de Gaulle family’s forty-mile retreat to safety, which ended with the news that Charles de Gaulle encouraged France to keep fighting on BBC radio. Clerc, Les de Gaulle, 152–53; Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 21–22; Neau-Dufour, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 48–49.

  “All of his family”: Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 23.

  There are different accounts of Xavier’s arrest. Some say he was arrested on June 18. Others say it happened on June 19. Glorion wrote about Xavier’s arrest and the family’s return to their apartment in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz on page 23. Xavier’s sister, Marie-Agnès Cailliau de Gaulle, wrote that the arrest happened “steps away” from her ailing mother, Jeanne, in her memoir, Souvenirs personnels (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2006), 44.

  never saw herself as the gun-toting warrior: Weschler, Sisters in Resistance.

  difficult for her to know how to channel her exasperation about the war into something useful: Weschler, Sisters in Resistance.

  as she ambled around Paimpont’s quiet streets: Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 24.

  Geneviève explained that she turned her back on Nazi officers because she didn’t want to submit to a conqueror’s rules if they weren’t really a conqueror. Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 24.

  Occupation conditions are well described in several works, including Simone de Beauvoir’s Wartime Diary, trans. Anne Deing Cordero, ed. Margaret A. Simons and Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008); Jean Guéhenno’s Journal des années noires, 1940–1941 (Paris: Gallimard, 1947); and Agnès Humbert’s Résistance: A Frenchwoman’s Journal of the War (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009). But this passage was drawn from the vivid recollections Michèle Moët-Agniel shared with me on January 9, 2016.

  Rosbottom’s When Paris Went Dark references the “Tips for the Occupied” tract, as does Caroline Moorehead on page 53 of A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship and Resistance in Occupied France (New York: Harper, 2011).

  The German presence became so overwhelming: Paxton captured the political complexity of occupied France in Vichy France on pages 38–45.

  Not everyone bought the lies: Historian Sudhir Hazareesingh included several letters written to General de Gaulle in his In the Shadow of the General: Modern France and the Myth of De Gaulle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). The ones I cite were used on page 16 of his book.

  Glorion said Geneviève spent a lot of time that summer ruminating and walking through the forests of central Brittany. She was worried about returning to school that August in the midst of all the upheaval (Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 25). It’s worth noting that long, solitary walks were also a pastime of her father’s, who roamed the Saar forests lost in thought after his wife passed away (Neau-Dufour, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 33).

  “I have confidence he will succeed”: “Jeanne de Gaulle,” en ce temps là: De Gaulle, no. 8 (1971): 6. Geneviève recounted her grandmother’s final moments in Dawn of Hope, 257–64.

  Clerc captured the story of Jeanne de Gaulle’s death, funeral, and the aftermath in Les de Gaulle, 153–54.

  “I enter today on the path of collaboration”: Pétain’s October 31, 1940, speech is cited in Jean Thouvenin’s Avec Pétain: Une nouvelle page d’histoire de France (Paris: Sequana, 1940), 30.

  “I moan about the mark this leaves on your family name” and the final months of Geneviève’s time in Rennes: Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 25–26. Geneviève also wrote about her experience in “Défense de la France,” en ce temps là: De Gaulle, no. 44 (1972): 27.

  Chapter 3: Kindling the Flame

  Madeleine de Gaulle’s background is captured in Clerc’s Les de Gaulle, 178–79. Glorion fixed Geneviève’s arrival at her home in Paris at the beginning of the 1941–1942 school year on page 26 of Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz. Geneviève said she moved to Paris in October 1941 in “Défense de la France,” en ce temps là: De Gaulle, no. 44 (1972): 27.

  Pierre had been working in Lyon . . . and Xavier’s release, recuperation: Clerc, Les de Gaulle, 164–65.

  Tillion speaks of the early days of founding the Musée de l’Homme network in Weschler’s documentary Sisters in Resistance, 11:10–14:57; in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion, Dialogues: D’après les entretiens filmés par Jacques Kebadian et Isabelle Anthonioz Gaggini (Paris: Plon, 2015), 29–33; and in Jean Lacouture’s Le témoignage est un combat: Une biographie de Germaine Tillion (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2000), 70–72. Lacouture writes about the Tillion family’s background in Le témoignage on pages 13–16.

  “Mothers of France”: Pétain is quoted in Collins Weitz’s Sisters in the Resistance, loc. 717.

  One resister, Agnès Humbert: Humbert, Résistance, 33.

  Geneviève wrote about her activities and the searches of her aunt’s apartment in “Défense de la France,” en ce temps là: De Gaulle, no. 44 (1972): 27–28. Geneviève tells the story again to Glorion in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, pages 27–29. The detail about Chantal’s Métro ticket collection is captured in Clerc’s Les de Gaulle, pages 176–77, but in this account Chantal worried about becoming head of the family too.

  Geneviève recalls going to Fresnes with Babeth in en ce temps là: De Gaulle, no. 44 (1972): 28.

  “I had no qualifications”: Anthonioz and Tillion, Dialogues, 30.


  Hitler spoke to the Reichstag on January 30, 1939, in what has become known as “The Jewish Question” speech. Excerpts of that speech are online at: www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/jewishquestion.html.

  Geneviève had been disturbed by the führer’s viewpoint: Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 13.

  Rosbottom offered this time line of anti-Semitic policies in his “Chronology of the Occupation of Paris” at the beginning of When Paris Went Dark.

  On the evening of July 16, 1942: Glorion, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 26–27; Anthonioz and Tillion, Dialogues, 85–86.

  British intelligence officers: Sweets, Choices in Vichy France, 162–70.

  “A lot of people were afraid”: Anthonioz and Tillion, Dialogues, 86–87.

  the Vichy government, at Germany’s urging: Sweets, Choices in Vichy France, 169.

  Glorion recounted Geneviève’s first acts and encounters in clandestine work in Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, 31–33.

  Tillion told Lacouture about the day she was captured in Le témoignage, 117–27.

  “I am a free Frenchman”: Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 266–67.

  Some of the background on the maquis is culled from Charles de Gaulle’s War Memoirs, excerpted in en ce temps là: De Gaulle, no. 43 (1972): 7–26.

  Geneviève wrote about her time in the maquis and being searched and questioned by Germans while en route to Paris in “Défense de la France,” en ce temps là: De Gaulle, no. 44 (1972): 28–29.

  Chapter 4: Défense de la France

  The early days of Défense de la France are captured in Olivier Wieviorka’s Une certaine idée de la Résistance: Défense de la France, 1940–1949 (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1995), 9–54.