French Resistance hero Lucie Aubrac dies
Lucie Aubrac, a hero of the French Resistance whose dramatic life story became a hit film, has died aged 94.
Aubrac, whose maiden name was Lucie Bernard, died yesterday in a hospital in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux, where she had spent the past two months, said her daughter Catherine Vallade.
Born on June 29, 1912, in the central city of Macon, Aubrac was working as a history and geography teacher when she and her husband, engineer Raymond Samuel, helped create Liberation-Sud, one of the first networks for the Resistance fighting against the Nazi occupation of France.
The couple adopted the nom de guerre Aubrac in the Resistance.
In 1943, Aubrac helped orchestrate her husband’s escape from a Lyon prison after his arrest. She persuaded the local Gestapo leader, Klaus Barbie, to let her meet her imprisoned husband.
During the meeting, she informed him of the Resistance’s plan to attack the German truck that was to transfer him.
The couple and their children fled to London in February 1944.
She received the Legion of Honour, France’s highest award, for her work in the Resistance.
French director Claude Berry made the hit 1997 movie Lucie Aubrac, starring Carole Bouquet in the title role. Two other films, Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 The Army Of Shadows and the 1991 Boulevard Of The Swallows by Jose Yanne, were also based on Aubrac’s story.
In 2000, Aubrac published The Resistance Explained To My Grandchildren, a book about her experiences.
Aubrac is survived by her husband and three children.
