When the French Militiamen Begged for Their Lives – But the Resistance Fighters Had No More Pity
They spoke the same language. They grew up in the same villages. [music] Some of them even went to school together. However, in 1944, in a barn near the request, some Frenchmen were preparing to execute [music] other Frenchmen. The men on their knees are not German soldiers, they are militiamen, compatriots who tortured, denounced, killed other French people [music] for 4 years.
Now they weep, they plead, they call upon their children, their mother, [music] God himself. The resistance fighters remain unmoved in the face of them. Not a single muscle in their face moves. [music] These men who are sacrificing their lives are the same ones who ignored the cries of their victim a few weeks earlier.
One of them, [music] Joseph Torres, a respected schoolteacher turned torturer, personally supervised the death [music] of 15 resistance fighters, including a 22-year-old woman who died at his hands. But here is the paradox that tears consciences apart. [music] An order has just arrived from London.
De Gaul demands a halt to the executions. The resistance fighters must choose between obeying [music] and letting their executioner live, or carrying out what they consider to be justice. [music] What happened in that barn reveals the hidden side of liberation when victims become judges, when pity has [music] disappeared, when even heroes are no longer quite heroes.
The bells of Mand ring for liberation. It is August 25, 1944. The last German convoys left the city during the night, fleeing north ahead of the Allied advance. In the streets, residents cautiously leave their homes. Some are waving tricolour flags [music] that have been hidden for 4 years. Others remain wary, waiting to see who really controls the city.
But three kilometers away, in an isolated barn [music] near the hamlet of Chanac, the atmosphere is anything but festive. 23 men are sitting on the straw, their hands tied behind their backs. [music] They hear the bells in the distance and each stroke of bronze reminds them that for them liberation probably means death.
These men are not Germans, [music] they are French, militiamen captured the day before during their attempt to flee north. Among them, [music] Joseph Torres, 25, adjusts his broken glasses during his arrest. A schoolteacher before the war, [music] he became the leader of hundreds of the French militia. This political police force was created by Vichi in January 1943 to hunt down resistance fighters and Jews.
Torres observes his fellow prisoners. [music] There is Paul Delmas, a butcher by trade, who joined the militia after his business failed. [music] Marcel Bonnefo, 19 years old, the youngest of the group, was trembling all over. François [music] Renault, a former gendarme who still retains a certain presence despite his torn clothes.
They all have in common that they chose the wrong side, but above all that they were more effective than the German [music] masters in the repression. The archives of the historical service of the defense [music] opened to the public in 2005 reveal the extent of the action of the militia in Lauser.
Between January and August [music] 1944, these men arrested more than 300 people. 87 were executed, often after torture sessions [music] in the cellars of the modern hotel transformed into the militia headquarters. This is what makes these crimes particularly heinous. It’s their intimate dimension. The militiamen [music] knew their victims.
They knew where their family lived, where their children went to school, and what their weaknesses were. This proximity transformed the repression [music] into something personal, visceral. When a German arrested a resistance fighter, [music] it was war. When a militiaman did that, it was treason. The personal diary of Raymond Dubrac, [music] FFI leader of the sector, discovered after his death in [music] 2012, offers us a direct testimony of these crucial hours.
He writes, “The morning of August 25th: [music] ‘My men want blood.’ They recognized among the prisoners the torturers of their comrades. How can discipline be maintained when each Makisar has a personal reason to want the death of his traitors? Outside, the resistance fighters stand guard. [music] They are hardened men, aged prematurely by four years in hiding.
Many still bear the marks of torture. Henricos has burn scars on his arms, a souvenir of his time in the cellars of the Hôtel Moderne. Pierre Malzac has been missing an arm since May, his left arm having been [music] methodically broken during an interrogation. Jean Rouset limps, his right leg having been crushed in a vise.
His men look at the barn [music] with cold hatred. For them, the militiamen locked up there are not prisoners of war. [music] They are criminals, traitors, executioners. The Geneva Convention does not apply [music] Not to them. They deserve no pity. But the situation is more complex [music] than it seems .
A radio message has just arrived from London. The Provisional Government of the French Republic [music], led by de Gaulle, orders a halt to all summary executions. Collaborators must be tried in regular courts. The order causes consternation among the makizars. [music] Is he asking us to be civilized with these barbaric, grumbling resistance fighters? [music] Where were the courts when they were shooting us in the ditches? Tension is rising.
Some are talking about disobeying orders, about finishing off the militiamen now before the regular army arrives and protects them. It is in this explosive context that ak makes a decision that will lead him [music] to his death. He will organize a trial, not a real trial [music] with lawyers and procedure, but a confrontation, the victims facing their executioner, the testimonies [music] against the Denials, truth against lies.
In the barn, Thor pulls a crumpled photograph from his inside pocket . [music] His three children smile at the camera. He gazes at it for a long time, then puts it away. He knows what’s coming . [music] In his personal notebooks, seized at the time of his arrest, there is [music] this sentence written the day before: “I will die tomorrow, I deserve it, but my children will carry my shame all their lives.
” This awareness [music] of guilt makes his case even more disturbing. Thorres is not a conscienceless monster. [music] He is an educated, intelligent man who made an ideological choice and stuck to it to the end, even when that choice transformed him [music] into a torturer. How does a respected schoolteacher become a torturer? This is the question [music] that hangs over this barn, over this day, over this entire dark period in the history of [music] France.
The trial begins at 2 p.m. The militiamen are brought [music] one by one into the main part of the barn, which has been transformed into a makeshift courtroom. [music] Planks on staves serve as a desk. Au Brac presides [music] flanked by two deputies. Facing them are about thirty resistance fighters and civilians, all direct or indirect victims of the militia.
[music] The first to appear is Paul Delmas, the stocky butcher, [music] with a receding hairline. He is sweating profusely despite the coolness of the barn. Before Obrac [music] can even speak, a woman rises from the audience. It is Jeanne Martel, 52 [music] years old, widowed for three months.
“He’s the one who arrested my husband,” she says [music] in a strangely calm voice. “On May 15th, my Robert wasn’t even [music] in the Resistance. He had simply refused to sell meat on the black market for the militia. Delmas tortured him for two days for nothing, [music] for pleasure. Delmas tries to defend himself. Those were the orders.
I was told he was hiding weapons. His voice is high-pitched. Panicked, I was doing my French homework. [music] The communists were going to take power. A bitter laugh runs through the audience. Pierre Malzac stands up, [music] showing his stump. Your French homework, you held me personally while he broke my arm. You were laughing.
You said it would teach me to be a smart aleck. The testimonies continue. [music] Each accusation is more damning than the last. Delmas participated in 37 arrests. He supervised torture sessions. He [music] personally executed four resistance fighters in the courtyard of the Hôtel Moderne. The evidence is in his own meticulously written and signed reports.
[music] Next comes Marcel’s turn Bonnefois, the youngest. He cries even before being questioned. [music] I was only ten years old when I joined the militia,” he sobs. “My father forced me. He said it was this or forced labor in Germany. But again, the testimonies [music] are damning. Bonne Foi was one of the most cruel during the interrogations.
His youth, far from being an excuse, [music] seemed to exacerbate his violence. Marie Rousseau, 28, recounts in a broken voice. [music] He would hit me in the face while laughing. He said I was too pretty for a terrorist. He broke three of my teeth. It was then [music] that Joseph Torres was brought in.
His entrance caused a heavy silence. [music] Unlike the others, he stood straight, almost dignified. He adjusted his broken glasses [music] and looked at the audience without flinching. Obrac spoke. [music] Joseph Torres, you are accused of having supervised the torture and execution of fifteen resistance fighters, of having organized the deportation [music] of 23 Jews and of having directed the reprisal operations against the civilian population. Torres denies everything.
His response stuns the audience. I admit to all the facts. [music] I acted in accordance with my convictions. I thought I was saving France from communism. I was wrong, but I was sincere. This sincerity in the face of horror triggers fury. Henricos [music] leaps up: “Sincere, you tortured Marie Duran, a 22-year-old girl [music] to death.
” She was a schoolteacher, just like you. Thor pales at that name. For the first time, its facade cracks “Marie Duran”, [music] he murmurs. “She never spoke. Three days of interrogation, [music] she didn’t give a single name. There’s almost a sense of respect in her voice, which makes the scene even more [music] unbearable.
Father Bernard, a clandestine member of the resistance, then speaks. He is a 60-year-old man with a face marked [music] by hardship. I administered the last rites to Marie Duran. She told me, ‘ Father, forgive them, [music] but I cannot.'” God forgive me, but I cannot. [music] The hours pass, 23 militiamen march past. Each person tries to justify themselves.
Orders, fear, [music] ideology, pressure, threats. But in the face of this, the victims and their relatives remain inflexible. Four years of suffering [music] killed all capacity for compassion within them . Torres’ notebooks, read aloud [musically] reveal the extent of the collaboration. Lists of names, roundup plans, interrogation techniques learned from the Germans and [music] enhanced with a French touch.
The cultured schoolteacher noted everything with maniacal precision, including the cries of his victims, [music] described as resistance gradually diminishing or psychological collapse reached. Versite heures, Obrac [music] suspends the session. The militiamen are brought back to their corner of the barn.
[music] The resistance fighters are meeting to deliberate. The debate is heated. Some want to shoot them all immediately [music] . Others, a minority, argue for waiting for the arrival of the regular army [music] and a real tribunal. A real court blows up a Makisard with lawyers paid to defend them, [music] with judges who have never known torture.
They’ll get away with a few years [music] in prison. The most moving testimony comes from a 16-year-old teenager, André Blanc. [music] His father was executed by Thores, his mother raped by the militiamen before being deported. [music] “I just want to know why,” he said, looking at Toress. “Why so much cruelty? We were your neighbors, your fellow countrymen.
” Torres looks at him for a long time before answering, “Because you were the enemy within, more dangerous than the Germans. They would leave one day, [music] you would stay.” Night falls on Chanac. In the barn, the kerosene lamps cast dancing shadows [music] on the walls. The militiamen are gathered in their corner. Some pray, others stare into space.
Joseph Torres writes on a scrap of paper with a pencil. It is his last will and testament. [music] A message for his children whom he will never see again . Outside, the resistance fighters are still deliberating. The debate took an unexpected turn [music] when a messenger arrived from Mend with a new directive from London.
The provisional government insists: “No execution [music] without a proper trial.” De Gaulle wants to show the world that liberated France is a [music] state of law, not a land of revenge. Raymond Obrac is torn. He wrote in his journal that night [music] how to explain to my men that they must spare those who have not spared them.
How can we tell them that justice must prevail over revenge [music] when revenge seems to be the only possible justice? Then an event [music] occurs that will change everything. A new witness arrives, it is Louis Tores, 68 years old, Joseph’s father. The old man, weakened by age and grief, asks to speak to the resistance fighter.
His presence causes discomfort. He is a respected man, [music] a veteran of the Great War, decorated at Verdin. “My son is a monster,” he said in a broken voice. “I didn’t come to plead for his life. I came to tell you that I understand your hatred. He has dishonored our name, our family.” He pauses, tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks.
“But I ask you one thing: let me speak to him one last time, [music] father to son, before you do what you must do.” The request divides the resistance fighters. Some see it as a maneuver. Others are moved by the old man’s dignity. “At the point, slice granted, you have ten [music] minutes.” The encounter between father and son is poignant.
They are alone in a corner of the barn, [music] but their voices carry in the silence. “Why, Joseph? Why did you do this?” the father asks. The son’s answer is barely audible. “I thought I was doing the right thing, Dad. [music] I thought I was protecting the France you taught me to love. The France I taught you to love doesn’t torture its children,” the old man replies.
Then more Gently, [music] your mother died of shame. She couldn’t bear what you became. This revelation breaks something inside Joseph [music] Torres. For the first time since his arrest, he collapses. The sobs of a man who realizes the extent of what he has destroyed: not only [music] his victims, but his own family, his own honor. The scene has an unexpected [music] effect on the resistance fighters.
Seeing this militiaman cry does not bring the hoped-for satisfaction. Jean Rousset murmurs: “Even monsters have their counterparts.” It’s a humanization he didn’t want, [music] which complicates their thirst for revenge. But it is Henricos who reignites the debate. My brother had a father too. He was 16 years old when Toress tortured him to death.
Where were Toret’s tears at that moment? The night wears on, the resistance fighters vote. 17 death sentences, six to forced labor. [music] The sentence for the youngest and those whose crimes are less serious, if such a distinction can exist. Marcel Bonnefoie was among those spared, his youth ultimately working in his favor [music] despite his cruelty.
Arac announces the sentences at 2 a.m. Those sentenced to death react differently. [music] Some collapse, others remain stoic. Paul Delmas shouts: “You have no right. I want a real trial. A lawyer.” François Renault, the former gendarme, simply nods his head. It’s the law of retaliation. I understand. Joseph Torres asks for a favor.
Can I finish my letter to my children? Aurac agrees. Thores wrote for an hour, covering three pages in his cramped schoolteacher handwriting. [music] This letter, preserved in the national archives, is a deeply moving document. He’s not looking for excuses. Don’t ask [music] for forgiveness. He simply wrote, “My children, your father did terrible things believing he was doing good.
Do not be ashamed to bear my name, but promise me never to hate in the name of an idea.” Preparations for the execution begin. 17 posts [music] are erected in the adjacent field. The resistance fighters are cleaning the backs of their weapons. Some volunteers for the platoon, others refuse. [music] ” I killed Germans in combat,” said one of them.
But shooting Frenchmen tied to posts, even traitors, is beyond my strength. Father Bernard is called in to administer the last rites. Several convicts refuse. God abandoned me a long time ago, says [music] Delmas. But Thor agrees. His confession to the priests will last 40 minutes. Father Bernard would later say, “I have heard [music] many confessions in my life.
” That one stayed with me until my death. Dawn is approaching. In a few hours, ten men will die. [music] French people killed by French people in the name of justice or revenge, depending on the point of view. In the barn, there is total silence. Each person is alone with their conscience. [music] executioner and victim alike, all prisoners of this French tragedy.
Marcel, in good faith, huddled in his corner, murmurs incessantly: [music] “I’m only 19 years old. I’m only 19 years old.” As if his age could erase his crimes, [music] as if youth were an absolution. 6 a.m., August 26, 1944, [music] the sky pays in the east. The 17 condemned men are led towards the posts. [music] their step Christ on the gravel.
Some walk alone, others need support. [music] Paul Delmas has fainted and two resistance fighters are dragging him away. François Renault marches in military step, the last vestige of dignity [music] of a former gendarme. Joseph Torres asks not to be blindfolded. “I looked my victims in the face,” he said.
“I can look death in the face. His request is granted. [music] The other condemned men are tied to the post. One of them, a 23-year-old militiaman named Robert Fourt, calls for his mother. The sound of his broken voice sends shivers down the spines of even the most hardened resistance fighters. Raymond Obrac reads the sentences.
[music] His voice carries in the still morning air. For crimes against the civilian population, torture, murder, and collusion [music] with the enemy. You are sentenced to death. No proper military tribunal . No lawyer, [music] no appeal, summary justice or legal assassination. History will judge. The firing squad [music] takes its place.
Two men, all volunteers, all who have personally suffered at the hands of the militia. Henricos is among them . His rifle [music] is pointed at the man who killed his brother. Pierre Malzac, too, clumsily holding his weapon in his only [music] good hand. These men are not natural executioners. They are peasants, workers, [music] merchants transformed by the war into vigilantes.
It is then that a moment occurs that will remain etched in everyone’s memory. Joseph Torres asks to speak one last time. [music] In a loud voice, he declares: “Frenchmen, we will die Frenchmen.” We betrayed, [music] we were wrong, but we die for our convictions, even if they were wrong. May our death serve as a lesson.
[music] May French people never again kill each other in the name of foreign ideology. These words caused visible turmoil in the peloton. One of the rifles lowers itself momentarily. The man holding it, a resistance fighter named [music] Claude Bertrand, hesitates. His classmates are watching him. The tension is palpable.
Then Bertrand raises his weapon. The moment of doubt has passed. En jou orders au brac. [music] The guns are raised. In the silence, Paul Delmas can be distinctly heard reciting a “Hail Mary”. François Renault shouts. [music] Long live France, without us knowing which France he is invoking. Robert Fort is still choking. Fire ! The salvo tears through the air.
[music] Several condemned men collapse immediately. Others remain standing. hurt. The final blows are necessary. It is the brac itself [music] that administers them. The face of marble. Later, he would write that every bullet fired that morning took a little bit of my soul away. We have done justice.
[music] But at what price ? Joseph Torres takes a long time to die. Hit in the chest, he remained conscious for several minutes. Father Bernard approaches, defying protocol. Thor’s last words, as reported by the priest, were: “Tell my children that I regret it.” [music] He will never finish his sentence. 7:15, it’s over.
17 bodies are hanging from the post. There is total silence. [music] Even the birds seem to have fallen silent. The resistance fighters remained motionless, as if petrified by the magnitude of what they had just done. Some [music] weep not from sadness for the dead, but from relief, from exhaustion.
of emptiness after so much hatred, [music] the six spared militiamen are brought back to the barn. They heard the gunshots. Marcel Bono Fois is in a state of shock. [music] He keeps trembling. He will spend 8 years in prison. But on the morning of August 26, he entered until his death in 2003. The bodies are detached [music] and placed in a mass grave.
No coffin, no ceremony, just a wooden cross where someone will carve later. Here lie [music] 17 Frenchmen who died in the civil war. Louis Torres, the father, obtains permission to recover his son’s body for a family funeral. When he takes the body in his arms, the old man collapses.
“My son, my poor son,” he repeats. A resistance fighter approaches [music] to help him. This is Henricos, the one whose brother was killed by Joseph Torres. The two men look at each other. No forgiveness, no reconciliation, just the mutual recognition of a shared pain [music]. Abrac’s report on the executions sent to London and [music] the conic.
Justice rendered according to the circumstances. 17. Execution. Order maintained [music] de Gaulle, they say. he would have commented, necessary but regrettable. [music] The phrase sums up all the ambiguity of those dark hours. In [music] Mand, news of the executions divides the population. Some applaud, others murmur that it’s assassination.
The families of the militiamen do not dare to claim the bodies. They will live with this shame [music] for generations. Joseph Torres’ children will change their names, move far away, trying to escape the ghosts of their father. The [music] resistances disperse throughout the day. Many will never see each other again .
They return to their former lives, but are forever marked by them. Pierre Malzacra [music] years later. We are being called heroes. But that morning, I didn’t feel [music] heroic. I felt like I was becoming like them. And that’s a victory they won, [music] even in death. 40 years later, in 1984, [music] an American historian Robert Paxton arrives in Mend for his research on Vichi France.
He wants to understand the savage purge, [music] those thousands of summary executions that marked the liberation. In the departmental archives, he stumbles upon a dusty file. [music] The minutes of the executions of August 26, 1944. Paxton meets Raymond Obrac, then 70 years old [music] in his retirement home near Lyon.
The old man agrees to speak in detail about that day for the first time. “You know,” he said, staring at his wrinkled hands, “I’ve never regretted ordering those executions, but I’ve never been able to forget them either. Every August 26th, I see their faces again. Not the resistance fighters they killed.
No, their faces—that’s the price of revenge, even when justified. It marks you as much as those it strikes.” Marcel Bonnefois, one of the six spared, still lives. Freed from the penal colony in 1952, he settled in the south, changed his name, married, and had children who know nothing of his past. Paxton finds him. The sixty-year-old man who opens the door is no longer the cruel young militiaman he once was.
He’s a stooped old man, consumed by guilt. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it,” he confides sincerely. “I had 19 years old. [music] I was an idiot, a coward, a monster. But I was also a kid who was scared, who wanted to impress the adults. [music] That’s not an excuse. There is no excuse. But it’s the truth.
He pulls out a letter, Johnny. It’s a letter he wrote to Henricos [music] in 1980. Forty years after the events, he asked for forgiveness, not to be forgiven, but so that K would know that the monster who had participated [music] in his brother’s death was at least aware of his monstrosity. [music] Kos never replied.
Paxton also meets with Henry Kos. At 75 [music], the former resistance fighter categorically refuses to talk about the executions. It was wartime. [music] We did what we had to do. End of story. But his wife confides to the historian that her husband still has nightmares, that he wakes up sometimes shouting “Fire!” in his sleep! Joseph Torres’ children rebuilt their lives under different names.
The eldest became a doctor, as if to redeem the lives his father took. He agrees to speak to Paxton on condition of anonymity. “My father was a monster, but he was also my father.” How can the two be reconciled? I’ve spent my life trying to understand [music] how the schoolteacher who taught me to read could have become a twister.
I still don’t have the answer [music]. He shows Paxton his father’s last letter, the one written [music] the night before the execution. The pages are worn from being read and reread. He does not ask for forgiveness. He’s not looking for excuses. He just says that he loves us and that he hopes we will do better than him.
It’s both insufficient and [music] is all I have. In 1995, France commemorated the 50th anniversary of the liberation. Fine, [music] no ceremony for August 26th. The official silence on the brutal purge continues. But in the small cemetery of Chanac, [music] someone is laying flowers on the mass grave of the militiamen. No name on the bouquet, just a word.
So that it never happens again . The debate over the purge still divides historians. [music] Some speak of necessary popular justice, others of disguised settling of scores. The figures vary. Between 9,000 and 10,000 summary executions according to the most reliable estimates, France took 50 years to face this reality. [music] What is striking in the later testimonies is the lack of satisfaction among the former resistance fighters.
They got their revenge, [music] but it did not ease their pain. Pierre Malzac, the Manchaud resistance fighter , expressed it this way shortly before his death in 1990. We thought that by killing them, we would erase what they had instilled in us, but it doesn’t work like that. [music] The pain remains and on top of that we have to live with the burden of having killed.
Father Bernard, the resistance leader [music] left memoirs published after his death. He wrote, “I saw men die that morning. Guilty men, certainly, monsters [music] perhaps, but also men. And their last words were no different [music] from those of their victims. They called for their mothers, prayed to God, wept. Death makes us all equal in terror.
Today in Chanac, [music] the mass grave still exists. Weeds and brambles have overgrown it. [music] The wooden cross has rotted, replaced by a simple stone where one can still barely read [music] civil war 1944. No name, no precise date, [music] as if even memory wanted to forget. But history refuses to die. It resurfaces [music] in the nightmares of the last witnesses, in the archives that are exhumed, [music] in the questions of little children who want to understand.
It reminds us of this terrible truth. When a nation is torn apart, when brothers become enemies, [music] there is no of victors, just survivors who must learn to live with their ghosts. The militiamen begged, the resistance fighters showed no mercy. Who can judge them? We who have not known torture, betrayal, the all-consuming hatred.
This story does not offer us the comfort of simple moral judgment. It leaves us with this question: In the same circumstances, what would we have done? And honesty compels us to admit that we do not know, that we cannot know, and that perhaps that is for the best.
