Early 1970s in the city from Toulouse, a general practitioner named doctor Jacques Renard received a patient who would deeply mark his career. The man aged around 60 years old suffered from persistent pain the jaw. It wasn’t a pain recent nor an ordinary injury. According to her own words, she accompanied him for over thirty years.
During for a long time, he had learned to live with she, eating slowly, speaking little, to avoid sudden movements of the mouth. But with age, suffering became more intense. The gestures simple everyday things, open your mouth to speak, chew a piece of bread, even yawning, now caused unbearable twinges. Doctor Renard carried out an examination attentive to the articulation tempora-mandibular, the complex articulation which allows human beings to open and close the mouth.
What he observed intrigued him immediately. The presented ancient deformations as if the joint had suffered an injury intentional or medical manipulation poorly healed. Internal scars suggested old trauma but especially a deliberate intervention. The doctor looked up at his patient and asked him a simple question, almost commonplace in a medical office.
That you has it arrived? The man hesitated at length before responding. He seemed to weigh each word as if speaking cost him not only physically but also morally. Finally, he said in a low voice and slow: “If I tell you, you won’t probably won’t believe me. And even if you believe me, you will not understand why they did that.
” These words further intrigued the Doctor Renard who encouraged his patient to continue. What man revealed that day was recorded carefully in medical notes of the doctor. For nearly 20 years, these notes remained forgotten in a file stored in an archive drawer among hundreds of other medical records ordinary.
But in 1998, a historian named Philippe Morel discovered his documents by searching on the forgotten survivors of the Second World War. What he read attracted immediately his attention. The patient of Doctor Renard was called Marcel Dubois and his story was not unique. By continuing his research at through hospital archives and the testimonies of survivors, Morel identified 23 men with similar injuries to the jaw.
All had survived the camp. All had been classified under the symbol of the triangle pink, mark imposed on prisoners homosexuals in the camps concentration. And they all told a story similar story. that of an injury voluntarily inflicted in a camp. A injury which had marked them for the life.
This surprising discovery raised an essential question. Why had these men survived? while so many others had not had this luck? Statistics historical records show that the homosexual prisoners, detained in Nazi camps suffered a rate of extremely high mortality. According to the studies carried out after the war, more than half of them don’t over-virtuate not to their detention.
The conditions of work, mistreatment and internal discrimination within the camps made their survival particularly difficult. However, these 23 men had all lived long enough long time to testify. Their point common seemed linked to this mysterious jaw injury. To understand this story, we must go back to the year 1943. That year the war raged on several fronts.
Nazi Germany mobilized all its resources human and industrial to support its military effort. The camps of concentration, initially conceived as instrument of political repression, gradually became reservoirs of forced labor for the economy of Reich War. One of these camps was Nonengam Concentration Camp, located near from the port city of Hamburg.
Created in 1938, this camp became over time years a vast industrial complex where tens of thousands of prisoners were forced to work in brickyards, construction sites and factories linked to the military industry. The living conditions there were extremely hard. The prisoners suffered from malnutrition, disease and of exhaustion.
Many would die afterwards just a few months. It is in this camp that Marcel Dubois arrived in the spring of 1943. Born in Nant, he was 24 years old when he was arrested by the Guestapo. Before the war, Marcel worked in a bookstore. He loved literature and spent a much of his time reading and discuss books with customers. Its life was simple and discreet, but in occupied France, certain differences could become dangerous.
Homosexuality, already stigmatized in society at the time was severely repressed by the Nazi regime. After a denunciation of which he never knew Originally, Marcel was arrested and questioned for several days before to be transferred to Germany. The The journey to the camp was long and trying.
Crammed into a wagon with other prisoners, Marcel did not know not what he expected. When he arrived in Nunengam, he was given the striped uniform of the prisoners and we sew on his jacket a pink triangle, a sign distinctive reserved for prisoners accused of homosexuality. This mark immediately placed him among the most popular categories marginalized from the camp.
The first days were marked by confusion, fatigue and fear. Marcel discovered quickly the hardness of the work imposed to the detainees. Every day, columns of prisoners were taken to the brickyards of the camp where they transported heavy loads under supervision armed guards. Food rations were insufficient and the costs frequent.
Many prisoners collapsed from exhaustion. In this context, surviving seemed almost impossible. However, after a few weeks, Marcel was removed from this work and drive with others prisoners towards an isolated building camp. The inmates called it home silence. Nobody knew exactly what was happening there, but all seemed to understand that it was of a particular place, a place where some prisoners entered and came back to change.
This is where Marcel was going to experience an episode that would mark all his life. And this is also where begins one of the most interesting stories disturbing discoveries by historians of the Nazi camps. When Marcel du Bois was taken towards the isolated building inside the camp of Nonam Concentration Camp, he didn’t yet know that this place would remain engraved in his memory for the rest of his life.
The prisoners called in a low voice the house of the silence. The name circulated among detained as a disturbing rumor. Some claimed that medical experiments took place there. Others said that the men who went out were never again same. But in a camp concentration, the rumors were numerous and rarely verifiable. That morning, Marcel was walking in a small column of around ten men, all marked with the pink triangle sewn on their uniform.
They were watched by two armed guards who didn’t say a word. The building himself contrasted with the camp barracks. The walls were clean, windows intact and the interior gave off a smell of disinfectants more reminiscent of dispensary than a place of detention. For men accustomed to dust and the dirt of the barracks, this place seemed almost unreal.
In the first room, a waiting room improvised, a few wooden chairs were lined up against the wall. On the walls were hung with diagrams anatomical representing the human head and the jaw joint. These images, simple medical illustrations, seemed strange in the context of a concentration camp. A man in a white coat entered a few moments later.
He introduced himself as Doctor Otto Brant. According to the testimonies recited after the war, he was a doctor working under the authority of the camp medical service, responsible for certain programs specific related to the management of detainees. Brand spoke in a calm voice and almost professional. He explained to the prisoners they had been selected for work particular.
According to him, this selection could increase their chance of survival in the camp. In an environment where most prisoners would die of exhaustion in the workshops and brickyards, this promise aroused a mixture of hope and worry. In the Nazi camps, any offer of special treatment often hid a darker reality. The prisoners were called one by one into a room adjacent.
When the first man entered, the door closed behind him. A few minutes later, seizures muffled sounds were heard followed by a disturbing silence. When he came out, his face was pale and his jaw surrounded by bandages. He didn’t speak not. He seemed unable to do it. The other prisoners exchanged anxious looks.
They understood that something unusual was happening. However, in a concentration camp, refusing an order was impossible. When Marcel’s name was called, his legs were trembling. He entered the room under the bright light of a lamp medical. The room looked like a rudimentary dental office. A chair equipped with strap was located at center.
Instruments were arranged on a metal table. The doctor Brant calmly observed each prisoner as if it were a simple clinical examination. Marcel was attached to the chair to avoid any sudden movement. The guards held his head while the doctor examined the joint of his jaw. The testimony that Marcel Dubois gave decades later did not describe the precise details of the intervention.
He simply explained that the doctor manipulated the joint of his jaw in a way that caused intense pain and immediate. The objective seemed to be to limit the complete opening of the mouth without completely preventing the ability to eat. After the intervention, his jaw was bandaged and he received an injection intended to alleviate the pain.
The doctor explained briefly that the pain would decrease over time, but some limitations would remain permanent. Marcel was taken back to the operating room with the other prisoners who suffered the same procedure. The following days were extremely difficult. The pain almost prevented any communication. Even whispering took effort considerable.
The men communicated by gesture, by look or by writing a few words when it was possible. Little by little, they began to understand that this intervention was not an isolated experience. In the block, an older prisoner named Gustave explained to them that he had suffered the same procedure for several months previously.
According to him, his prisoners were then sent to work in industrial facilities sensitive where the camp authorities wanted to limit trade information. This explanation revealed a worrying logic. The homosexual prisoners, already marginalized in society at the time, were considered witnesses not very credible in the eyes of the world exterior.
By assigning them to tasks secret, while limiting their capacity communications, the Nazi authorities thought to reduce the risk of disclosure of certain activities industrial or military. Of weeks later, Marcel and the other men were transferred out of the camp main. They were transported to truck to a facility located in the German countryside.
There, under several agricultural buildings seemingly ordinary, there was a underground industrial complex. In these facilities, prisoners worked on the manufacture of components intended for the V2 rocket, one strategic weapons developed by Germany at the end of the war. Marcel and the other prisoners were assigned to these workshops.
Their work required precision and concentration. The guards were watching them but the treated prisoners differently external brigades. They were not not subjected to grueling marches nor for the heaviest jobs. Their survival now depended on their usefulness. It is in this environment that Marcel spent many months working in almost total silence.
The men who shared this destiny developed a particular form of solidarity. They communicated by gesture, by look or by a few whispered words when the pain allowed. In this universe underground, he formed a community strange, a group of men united by a same injury and by the same necessity to survive.
This forced silence imposed by the violence of the system concentration camp was nevertheless going paradoxically become one of the reasons why some of them would survive until the end of the war. During the summer of 1943, Marcel du Bois gradually got used to to the strange and silent life that was organized in the installation underground where he had been transferred after his passage through the Neengam camp Concentration Comp.
Located in a rural area away from large cities, the installation is presented to the outside as a simple farm surrounded by field and wood. Nothing, apparently, distinguished from the numerous exploitations agricultural sectors of northern Germany. Yet, beneath the surface buildings, a network of galleries and rooms industrial facilities had been set up for host production workshops linked to the German war effort.
In these underground spaces worked hundreds of prisoners from different camps. Many were political prisoners, workers forced people from Eastern Europe or prisoners of war. But Marcel quickly noticed that a small group of prisoners formed a separate category. We called them among themselves, sometimes with a bitter irony, the silent ones.
All wore the pink triangle on their uniform, sign imposed by the camp administration to designate homosexual prisoners. All had undergone the same procedure which limited the complete opening of their jaw and gave speech difficult and painful. In the first weeks, Marcel learned to communicate differently.
The gestures become essential. A simple movement head could mean agreement, distrust or warning. The looks were used to transmit information fast in an environment where supervisors constantly observed the detainees. The rare whispered words were reserved when no guard was not nearby. In this universe where silence dominated, men developed a form of understanding almost instinctive mutual.
Marcel later remembered that he had met in this workshop a former singer opera from Vienna. This man who had once lived by his voice could now pronounce only a few words in a low voice without feeling acute pain. There was also a former regular Berlin lawyer formerly pleading in court who now communicated in scribbling brief notes on pieces of paper recovered from the workshop.
Each of these men had lost an essential part of his identity. Yet, despite its losses, they were still alive. And in a forced labor camp or system, survival already constituted a form of victory. Work in the factory underground was difficult but different from that of the brigades exterior. The prisoners manufactured metal components intended for the assembly of weapons advances, notably the V2 rockets developed by engineers Germans.
These weapons represented one of the regime’s most secret projects Nazi. Their production required significant technical precision and certain level of training. Marcel, who had always been meticulous in his work at the bookstore, was assigned to a position requiring handling precision of metal parts. The days began before dawn and ended late at night.
The prisoners worked under constant artificial light which made it difficult to perceive the time. The air in the galleries was heavy and sometimes laden with dust metallic. The poses were rare but unlike the brigades of brickyard of the main camp, the detainees sometimes received rations slightly larger in order to maintain their work capacity.
This difference was not a sign of compassion. It simply revealed the cold system logic concentration camp. The Nazi authorities kept alive prisoners deemed useful to the military production. Marcel understood gradually this logic. The silent prisoners had become specialized workers. Their permanent injuries that made the difficult speech served indirectly the objectives of those who directed these facilities.
In an environment where technical information was considered as highly confidential, limit the communication ability of some workers reduced the risk of spreading secrets. The guards themselves seemed to consider these men as a special category. He didn’t treat them with respect but with calculated indifference. As long as the silencers were working effectively, they did not attract attention.
In this universe where brutality was omnipresent, this relative indifference could sometimes signify the difference between life and death. Over the months, Marcel observed carefully its surroundings. The German engineers sometimes circulated in the galleries to supervise certain stages of production. Of technical plans were consulted, prototypes transported between workshops.
Although the prisoners do not always understand the purpose exact details of the parts they manufactured, they perceived the strategic importance of the work accomplished. Some whispered that these weapons could reach cities located very far away from the forehead. One evening, while Marcel finished his shift, a guard older stopped him in a hallway desert.
Unlike most supervisors, this man seemed tired and concerned. He asked Marcel in a slow German if he understood the language. Marcel who guards him looked around him to check that no one did not observe him, then murmured a few words that remained engraved in the memory of the prisoner. He explained that the war was evolving rapidly and the Allied forces were advancing on several fronts.
According to him, he was likely that the conflict will end in the months or years to come. Before leave, he added a sentence that Marcel would never forget. If you survive, find a way to tell what you have seen. This remark surprised deeply Marcel. In a universe where speech was monitored and punished, hear a guard mention the need to testify seemed almost unreal.
Yet these words would remain in his mind for many years. It took on a particular meaning for a man whose ability to speak had been deliberately limited. The months following were marked by the pursuit work in the galleries underground. The war continued outside, but in the factory, time seemed suspended.
The silencers continued their work, observed their environment and tried simply to survive. They were unaware how long would their last captivity. But each of them understood now an essential thing. Stay alive until the end of the war would be their only chance to see a day freedom. In the fall of 1943, Marcel Dubois had now lived since several months in installation underground connected to the industrial system from the Nevengam camp.
The seasons passed to the surface, but in the galleries where the prisoners, the time seemed almost motionless. The days were similar all. The detainees went down to the workshops before dawn and went back late at night, tired, silent, often covered in dust metallic. Artificial light permanent erased all notion natural day and night.
Yet even in this environment closed, the prisoners received the changes that occurred in the outside world. Conversations between guards, scraps of information exchanged between German engineers. Sometimes even distant bombings reminded that the war continued above them. Since the battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the situation military of Germany had deteriorated.
Soviet armies were progressing to the east. while the Allied forces were preparing new offensives in the west. Marcel did not know all the details of these events, but he understood that the conflict entered a decisive phase. In the workshops, production does not wasn’t slowing down. On the contrary, the supervisors demanded cadences higher.
Parts manufactured in the galleries were intended for advanced weapons, notably V2 rockets. These machines represented one of the the regime’s most ambitious projects Nazi. Designed to hit cities located hundreds of kilometers away, it symbolized the hope of the regime of turn the tide of the war thanks to technology.
The prisoners however never saw the rockets complete. They only made components, metal parts, mechanical circuits, elements of structure. Each accomplished a specific task without knowing the whole of the process. This organization fragmented made it possible to maintain the secrecy surrounding the project.
For Marcel and the other silent ones, life in the factory was gradually transformed into a survival routine. They learned to preserve their energy, to avoid unnecessary conflicts and to support discreetly the most comrades weak. In a system designed to isolate individuals, this solidarity silence was a resource precious.
Some simple gestures took on a deep meaning. Share a piece of bread, help someone comrade to carry a piece too heavy. discreetly report the presence of a guard when someone tried to rest for a few moments. The jaw injury that affected the silencers remained a reality daily. The pain was decreasing sometimes but it never disappeared never completely.
would talk more about some sentences remained difficult. However, men found means of exchange. Despite its limitations, they developed a rudimentary system of signs and fast writing. On pieces of cardboard or paper fragments recovered in the workshop, they noted sometimes a few essential mouses. This improvised communication allowed information to be shared on working hours, inspections or immediate dangers.
In this group, little by little, a particular community. The men who composed it came from countries different and from varied horizons. But they shared a common experience. Some were artists, others artisans or employees. The singer Viennese that Marcel had met sometimes continued to sketch melodies in a very low voice, almost inaudible.
The former Berlin lawyer sometimes wrote down entire sentences on small papers as if to hold alive an intellectual habit which belonged to his previous life. These moments reminded the prisoners that they had existed before the camp and that another life had been possible. Towards the end of 1944, the atmosphere in the factory changed gradually.
The guards seemed more nervous. The inspections are multiplied. Documents were rushed from office to office the other. The engineers talked more often in a low voice. Marcel understood Reich became critical. The Allied bombing of cities German industrial companies were making more and more frequent. Some nights, even in the underground galleries, the prisoners could smell the distant vibrations from explosions.
Supervisors always demanded more production, but the organization began to disorganize. Some convoys of materials arrived late or did not arrive at all. machines sometimes remained unused, due to lack of parts. For prisoners, these signs announced a possible change, but no one yet dared to talk about an end close.
In the camps and controlled industrial installations by the Nazis, rumors could be as dangerous as the acts of resistance. However, the conversations discreet ones multiplied. Some prisoners spoke of the advance of allied armies. Others recalled that when the Nazis were losing ground, they often tried to transfer the detainees to other camps to erase traces of their activities.
This The prospect worried Marcel. He knew that these transfers could mean long forced marches or travel in extremely harsh conditions dangerous. Despite these uncertainties, the silencers continued to help each other and preserve this fragile balance that allowed them to survive. so far in this universe underground where speech remained limited, every gesture every discreet gesture carried meaning.
The men had learned to communicate quietly, to share the essential without words. Marcel sometimes thought about the sentence spoken by the guard a few months earlier: “Find a way to tell what you saw.” At that moment, this The idea seemed almost impossible to him. How to testify when speaking was he himself in pain? However, at deep down, he already knew that one day, if the war ended and if survived, he should find this way because what had happened in these underground galleries, far from view of the world, should not disappear in
silence. At the beginning of 1945, the situation in the installation underground linked to the Nowam camp changed visibly. For almost two years, Marcel Dubois and the other prisoners had lived in an organized system with almost mechanical regularity. The working hours, distributions food, inspections and travel followed rules strict.
But during the winter 1944-1945, this system started and cracked. The news circulating among the German guards and engineers were increasingly worrying for the diet. In the east, the army Soviet was progressing rapidly towards Germany. In the west, the forces Allies had landed in France in June 1944 and now moved towards the German territory.
The bombings air raids multiplied on the centers industrialists of the Reich. Even in the facilities far from large cities, the prisoners could smell that something was happening change. The guards seemed more nervous and sometimes more distracted. The officers came to inspect the workshops more often than before. Of documents were transported in closed boxes, sometimes burned in metal barrels placed behind the buildings.
Marcel observed his scenes carefully. After months passed in this environment, he had learned to interpret the signs. When the authorities of a system begin to destroying their own archives is often as this system approaches its fa. In the underground factory, work continued despite everything. The prisoners silencers remained assigned to the tasks precise details which required meticulousness.
their ability to work calmly and concentration, despite their injuries permanent, made them useful to supervisors. This utility paradoxically constituted their best protection. The prisoners employed in brickyards or the exterior construction sites would die often from exhaustion or illness. The silent, they sometimes received slightly higher rations in order to maintain their work capacity.
But even in this relatively stable, the tension increased. Engineers discussed more often in a low voice. Important pieces sometimes disappeared from the workshops to be transported to others site. We were talking about transfer of equipment and personnel to installations further away from the front. Marcel understood that those responsible were trying to move their projects more secret before the arrival of the armies allies.
In these uncertain times, the solidarity between the silent became even more important. The men who shared this experience particular had developed a relationship based on trust and mutual observation. They knew that everyone depended on others to survive. A look could warn of danger, a gesture could signal the arrival of a guard. This discreet communication constituted a real survival strategy.
The old opera singer sometimes continued to release very gently, almost imperceptibly some notes of melody they remembered having formerly sung in Vienna. These fragments musical were so weak that only the nearest men could hear them. However, they had a surprising effect on the group. During for a few moments, the prisoners remembered that they had a life before the war.
A life made of music, books, conversation normal. Marcel himself thought again often at the bookstore where he had worked in Nant. He remembered the smell of paper, of the calm silence of shelves filled with books and discussions with customers. These memories seemed to belong to a another existence, almost unreal compared to the reality of the camp.
However, he helped him keep a part of itself intact. One evening in March 1945, an unexpected event occurs. So that Marcel left his workstation in the galleries, the elderly guard who had spoken several months previously asked him discreetly. This man always had an attitude different from others supervisors.
He neither manifested excessive harshness, nor brutality excessive. He seemed rather tired, like someone observing the events with distance unusual. This time again, he looked around to make sure that no officers were nearby. Then he murmured a few sentences in German. He explained that the situation military force of Germany had become extremely serious.
The armies Soviets were approaching Berlin and the allied forces were advancing quickly from the west. According to him, the war could end in a few months. Marcel listened carefully despite the difficulty of maintain a conversation. The guard added a remark which disturbed him deeply. When all this is finished, he said softly, a lot of us will have to answer for what happened here.
But you, the silent, you saw things that the world must know. These words echoed what had already previously entrusted. Find a way to speak. This idea seemed almost paradoxical for a man whose ability to speak had been deliberately limited. However, Marcel understood not only spoke of the physical speech, he spoke of memory, of testimony, of the responsibility of tell what had been seen.
In the weeks that followed, the events accelerated. Equipment convoys left the facility no longer frequently. Some engineers disappeared without explanation. The guards received new orders almost every day. It became clear to the prisoners that the organization of the site gradually disintegrated. The silent continued to work but everyone felt that the end was approaching.
Nobody knew though what this ending would mean to them. In the Nazi camps, liberation was never guaranteed. Sometimes the prisoners were transferred to other sites to erase traces of what had happened. Sometimes they were simply abandoned. Despite these uncertainties, Marcel kept in mind memory the words of the guard: survive until the end, find a way to speak.
These words, simple but heavy with meaning, were going to stay with him for the last months of the war and well beyond. In spring the situation in the installation underground associated with the Noengam camp, concentration camp, facing more and more more chaotic. For months, Marcel Dubois and the other prisoners had lived in a brutal system but organized.
The schedules, the guards, the inspections and production industrial obeyed a rigid discipline. But when the war began to collapse around the Reich, this organization lost gradually its coherence. The news that circulated between guards confirmed what many already suspected. Soviet army was advancing rapidly towards Berlin while that the Allied forces were advancing from western Germany.
The aerial bombardment had destroyed numerous infrastructures industrial. In this context, the Nazi authorities were trying to move their most sensitive installations or destroy the evidence of certain secret programs. In the factory underground, the signs of this disorganization was visible. Of machines were hastily dismantled.
Boxes full of documents were transported to trucks or burned in metal barrels behind the buildings. The engineers were chatting nervously among themselves. Some disappeared overnight next day, probably transferred to other sites or recalled in military units. For the prisoners, this agitation meant one thing, uncertainty.
In the Nazi concentration camp system, when the front lines were getting closer, the detainees were often moved to other camps. These transfers, later known as called Death March, were extremely dangerous. The prisoners were forced to travel long distances distances under conditions exhausting. Many died on the way.
Marcel and the other silent ones understood that their fate remained uncertain. Their work in the factory had protected for a while, but no one knew if this protection would last until the end of the conflict. Despite these concerns, the small community of silent people continued to operate with the same solidarity than before.
The men observed each other attentively. and helped each other whenever possible. The gestures and looks remained their main means of communication. The former opera singer, despite the pain, still gave sometimes a few barely audible notes when the guards were not present. These fragments of music seemed to bring a moment of calm in an environment dominated by tension and uncertainty.
For Marcel, his moments were precious. He reminded her that even in a system designed to break down individuals, certain forms of humanity could survive. One day in April 1945, the events took a decisive turn. The prisoners were gathered at outside the installation. Of trucks were waiting on the road. The guards were ordered to evacuate the site.
The most important machines had already been dismantled or destroyed. The documents had been burned. The those responsible for the program were trying obviously to erase the traces of their activities before the arrival of allied forces. Marcel and the others detainees were loaded into the vehicles with several dozen other prisoners.
Nobody explained where they were going. Trucks drove for hours on secondary roads, crossing the German countryside. During the journey, the atmosphere was strange. The guards seemed nervous and were talking among themselves them in a low voice. Some looked regularly the sky as if there feared an air attack. To several times, the convoy stopped briefly before leaving.
Finally, in the afternoon, the trucks stopped on a road isolated, bordered by forest. The guards got out of the vehicles and discussed among themselves. Marcel observed the scene attentively. Then some something unexpected happened. The guards gradually moved away and disappeared into the woods. No order was not given to the prisoners.
No shots was not heard. For several minutes, no one dared to move. The men remained seated in the truck, unable to understand what is happening was passing. Was it a trap? A test? In the camps? Any attempt to escape could be punished immediately. Finally, one of the prisoners carefully got out of the vehicle. None guard appeared.
The others followed slowly. The prisoners realized little by little they had been abandoned. The guards, probably aware that the war was coming to an end and fearing being captured, had left their post. Marcel and the other inmates found themselves alone on this road free countryside but also disoriented and exhausted.
Most of them were weakened by months of forced labor and malnutrition. However, they immediately understood that they had to move away from the area as quickly as possible. The prisoners began to march through the woods and fields, avoiding the main roads. They didn’t know not exactly where the allied lines, but they hoped meet American soldiers or British.
For 3 days, they moved slowly, finding water in streams and sometimes a few food on abandoned farms. Marcel still felt the pain familiar in his jaw, but in these moments, physical suffering took second place. for the first times since his arrest in walked unsupervised. May 8 after several days of wandering, the group encountered a patrol American.
The soldiers understood quickly that they were dealing with prisoners released. The men were taken to an improvised medical station where they received food and care. For Marcel, this moment marked the end of a period which had begun 2 years ago in the bookstore quiet where he worked in Nant. The war was over, but along path to a normal life was not what to start with. Part 7.
After his release in the spring of 1945 by an American patrol, Marcel du Bois was transported with others former prisoners to a center improvised medical installed by the army allied in Germany. The doctors soldiers examined the survivors to assess their state of health. The most suffered from malnutrition severe, exhaustion and various infections linked to conditions of detention.
Marcel, like many others had lost a lot of his weight and his physical strengths were considerably reduced. During medical examination, doctors quickly noticed the state particularly of his jaw. The temporal-mandibular joint appeared to have undergone an intervention old which strongly limited the opening of the mouth.
The doctors Americans noted this anomaly in his file, but they could not determine the exact origin. In the military hospitals of the time, doctors met daily unusual injuries related to war. Many cases remained difficult to explain. In the file of Marcel, they simply wrote down a general formula: old injury to the jaw, cause unknown.
When the doctors asked him questions about what happened to him during his detention, Marcel tried to respond, but speaking remained difficult and painful. After months during which speech had been limited, the muscles of his jaw were weakened and the joint remained sensitive. Each sentence required effort.
Moreover, how to explain a story too strange to doctors who had not never seen the inner workings of a camp? Marcel said a few words but he quickly gave up on entering the details. The doctors understood especially since he had been detained in a labor camp and that he had survived extremely difficult conditions. After a few weeks of rest and care, Marcel was repatriated to France.
In August 1945, he returned to his country to the first time since his arrest two years earlier. But the return to civil life turned out to be more complicated than he had imagined. Was France also coming out of a period of war and reconstruction. The towns still bore the traces of occupation and families trying to resume a normal life after years of deprivation.
Marcel first returned to Nant, the town where he had lived before the war. But the bookstore in which he worked had closed for occupation. The apartment that formerly occupied it was now inhabited by other tenants. Several members of his family had learned the reason for his arrest. In French society of the time, homosexuality remained largely stigmatized.
Some relatives preferred not to talk about the past. Marcel understands that he would not easily find his place in this environment. He then decided to leave Nant and start again elsewhere. He chose to settle in Toulouse, a sufficiently large city to allow some discretion. There he found modest employment in a warehouse.
The work consisted mainly to organize goods and prepare orders. This type of job had a important advantage for him. He required little conversation. Marcel could accomplish his tasks without having to talk at length with colleagues. At Over the years, they built a simple and discreet existence. He praised a small apartment and led a life quiet.
However, some things remained difficult. The injury to his jaw never disappeared. She became a constant presence in his daily. Eat certain foods remained complicated. talk for a long time still caused pain. Marcel gradually got used to limiting his conversations and avoiding situations where he had to speak at length. But the difficulty was not only physical, it was also linked to the memory.
The years passed, but memories of the camp and the factory underground did not disappear completely. Marcel remembered the galleries lit by lamps artificial, machine noise, faces of the silent others who had worked alongside him. He didn’t know what happened to them afterwards the war. Some may have survived, others did not.
During for a long time, Marcel chose not to talk about this period of his life. The physical pain made speech difficult, but there was also a another reason. In the years that followed the war, the victims wearing the pink triangle were rarely officially recognized. Their story remained largely ignored in the stories public of the deportation.
Marcel understood that it would be difficult to explain what he had experienced in a context where few people wanted hear this type of testimony. Thus, for more than 30 years, he kept the silence. He worked, did his shopping, sometimes read books borrowed from a library municipal. His life seemed ordinary from the outside, but deep inside, the memories remained present.
The words of the guard encountered in the underground factory sometimes came back in his mind. Find a way to speak. Marcel had never forgotten this sentence. Yet he didn’t know how to put it into practice. The physical pain, distance of time and the indifference of society made this testimony difficult. This was not until the end of the 1970s, when the pain in his jaw became stronger with age, that he finally decided to consult a doctor.
This is how he crosses the door to doctor Jacques’ office Fox in Toulouse. This consultation which initially seemed to be a simple medical procedure would finally become the first step towards rediscovery of a long-ago story remained in the shadows. In 1978, when Marcel Dubois entered the office of doctor Jacques Renard in Toulouse, he did not think that this medical appointment would one day become an important piece of the history of memory of the Nazi camps.
For him, he It was just a consultation. made necessary by pain become too difficult to bear. For over 30 years he had learned to live with this constant discomfort in the jaw. But with age, the pain was intensifying. Speaking became more difficult and eating some foods almost became impossible. Doctor Renard carefully examined the joint of his jaw.
The X-rays revealed abnormalities old, a deformation of the temporamandibular joint, signs of unusual healing as if the bone had been intentionally handled or damaged for a long time previously. Intrigued, the doctor naturally asked the question that seemed to arise: “How did this injury happen? produced?” Marcel remained silent for a few moments.
It seemed hesitate between two decisions. Continue to remain silent as he had done for decades or try finally to tell a story that almost no one had heard. Finally he responded slowly with this prudence that he had developed for a long time. This happened during the war in a camp. The Doctor Renard then understood that the injury was not the result of ordinary accident.
He wrote down the words of his patient with attention in his medical record. Marcel told a part of his story: the arrest, deportation, forced labor, the underground installation and injury that changed his life. Yet even then he not tell everything. The words remained difficult to pronounce. The pain physics limited these sentences and memories themselves were heavy to wear.
Doctor Renard retained his notes in his archives. At the time, these information simply remained testimony among other files medical. But 20 years later, 1998, these documents were rediscovered by a French historian named Philippe Morel. Morel was conducting research on a subject long neglected, the persecution of prisoners wearing the pink triangle in the Nazi camps.
During many years after the war, this category of victims had been largely ignored in the stories historical. The survivors were few many and many had never testified publicly. By studying the medical archives and records survivors, Morel discovered the notes of Doctor Fox. Intrigued by the unusual description of the injury of Marcel, he began to search other similar cases.
Little by little, he identified several survivors presenting anomalies comparable to the jaw. All had been detained in Nazi camps. All had been classified under the pink triangle symbol and they all described a story resembling that of Marcel. This discovery pushed the historian to deepen his research. He consulted German archives, questioned survivors and examined documents partially destroyed dating from the end of the war.
The test remained fragmentary because many files had been destroyed by the authorities Nazis at the time of their defeat. But the testimonies agreed on several essential points. Finally, Morel found Marcel du Bois who lived still in Toulouse. Marcel then had over 80 years old. His health was declining but he agreed to meet the historian.
For the first time in decades, he decided to tell his story in front of a camera. The interview was long and difficult. Every sentence required physical effort. The old jaw injury continued to limit his speech. But Marcel spoke anyway. He told the arrest in Nant in 1943, the transfer to Neengham camp Concentration Camp, home of silence, medical intervention and months spent working in the factory underground.
He also described the little community of silent prisoners, these men who had learned to communicate differently to survive. To the end of the interview, Philippe Morel asked him a simple question. Why have you decided to speak now? Marcel thought for a long time before answer, then he uttered a sentence slow but determined.
He explained that a guard had told him one day during the war to find a way to tell what he had seen. During decades, he had not known how accomplish this task. The pain, the fear and indifference of society had made silence easier than speech. But over time, Marcel understood something essential. If the survivors did not speak, some stories would disappear completely.
Marcel Dub Bois died a few months after this interview at the end of 1998. He had lived more than 50 years with the pain left by his injury. However, before disappearing, he had before disappearing, he had finally accomplished what the guard unknown had advised him to do. He had found a way to speak. The had found a way to speak.
The research by Philippe Morel was research by Philippe Morel was published a few years later in published a few years later in a book dedicated to survivors a book dedicated to survivors forgotten wearing the pink triangle. The forgotten wearing the pink triangle. The book helped attract attention book helped attract attention historians and the public on a historians and the public on a long-neglected part of history.
long-neglected part of history. Today, several memorials Today, several memorials Europeans devoted to deportation Europeans devoted to deportation also discuss the fate of prisoners also discuss the fate of prisoners homosexuals in the Nazi camps. He homosexuals in the Nazi camps. To Paris, a commemorative plaque recalls their memory and pays tribute to those who survived despite persecution.
She recalls that these men were long silenced and their testimonies did not begin to be heard only several decades later the end of the war. The story of Marcel Dub Bois shows that memory history never disappears completely. Sometimes she stays buried for years in archives, in medical records or in the memories of some survivors.
But sooner or later, someone ends up asking the right questions and when this happens, voices from the past can finally be heard. Marcel had often repeated a simple sentence to explain his silence. I hurt open your mouth. This sentence described of course real physical pain, but over time, it also symbolized something broader. The difficulty talking about the past painful, difficulty transmitting an experience that few people can imagine.
However, despite this pain, Marcel ends up telling his history and thanks to this testimony, a part of the memory of the camps which could have disappeared is today preserved. Thus ends the story of a ordinary man who, despite the silence imposed by violence and the years, finally found the strength to transmit what he had experienced.
And it is precisely this transmission which allows us today to understand, remember and avoid that such tragedies are forgotten.
