I was born in Casablanca, Morocco, on December 9^th 1920; my maiden name is Jacqueline Retourné.

I heard about war, I mean the First World War, by my father, who'd been called up when he was 20 and who kept interesting memories of these sad episodes. He was part of those who'd been in a difficult position during the Somme battle when some soldiers rebelled - which we're talking about today. He didn't feel tenderness, but rather he showed a kind of understanding towards the German Feldwebel who was on the other side of the trench.

Indeed, he made us read a German book, that some still know today and which is entitled "Cap de l'infanterie". What this book showed is that it was as sad on our side as on theirs. It also showed that, in wartime, some people remain men, and that you can do without blind fierce hatred.

Then there was the Spanish Civil War. I was 16. We were at one with some Spanish Republicans who told us about the battle in their country.

In 1938, when I came to France, I saw refugees come after the fall of Barcelona. The fall of Barcelona was a collapse. It was the end. We perhaps felt something was not fair in the battle for a republican Spain. I'm not saying there were the good guys and the bad guys… But there were the mighty. What was already happening in Germany, and then in Italy, showed there was only room for an ideology that held people at its mercy.

In 1940 our country collapsed. I was lucky to be 20 in '40. When you're 20 you wonder: "What are we going to do?" The plan can only be a collective plan; you don't think about getting something for yourself. When you're 20 in '40, you don't know you're going to win in '44.

The plan was all the easier to set up as I was in a region where the Protestant majority immediately took a stand. It's them and their habits, as Marie Durand wrote it in the margin of the Aigue Morte (?) well: TO RESIST. It was natural to them.

It took part in the collective plan. As the rest of the Spanish Republicans. We started to distribute underground newspapers. One day, I was asked to join the Resistance. I still was a student; I was preparing the competitive examination for an appointment as a house officer. I chose to join the Resistance rather than studying. I was working on my exams but I didn't devote 100% of my time to studies. It was all the easier as it was settled the boys who passed the examination would be free from Compulsory Labour. I decided not to take the exam, since it wasn't fair a girl (for I stood a good chance to pass it) took a boy's place because he had to go to Germany.

Perhaps we weren't well organised as far as secrecy was concerned. On July 8^th '43, the Gestapo came to arrest me. Thanks to the collective effort of the students in the hostel where I lived, I managed to escape by another exit. Thanks to their protection, today I'm alive.

At that moment, I lived in hiding: I'd got false papers, etc. I did what every resistance fighter did: we went where it was necessary to go. We went from one place to another. Mobility was the key word: I stayed in Marseilles, I stayed for a short while in Paris, and I ended up in Lyons in 1943.

In '44, we knew there would be a landing. The allies' general staff had planned to send a lot of French troops where they had envisaged airdrops, that is to say in the middle of the Auvergne at the place called Le Monche (?). So I went with friends to Mont Mouchet and joined the resistance there. I was appointed to a company and, when Mont Mouchet was besieged and defeated, we went towards the south of France.

Meanwhile, the allies landed in the south of France. France was liberated, and in January '44, I joined the Rhine French army. I got very cold, because it was -30°C in Mulhouse. I must admit that when we arrived in Alsace, I particularly liked the white earthenware stoves. That's a very good memory. These people know how to protect themselves against the cold in a collective and friendly way!

A local family put me up. In Gewenheim, there was a photograph of a young Alsatian soldier who was in the German army in one of the rooms where I slept.

I was in his room and I felt some tenderness and some respect for him. Besides, I wonder what the family thought about it! Since I was a woman doctor, the pain may have been weaker for them. I hope so.

The campaign unfolded, as everyone happened to know it. We crossed the Rhine in Spire. There were a lot of minefields before it. I saw the corpse of a German warrant officer class II. He'd been shot in the head. Today I still wonder whether he shot himself in order not to have to go back to the other side of the Rhine, where he'd been at home for a while.

I went to the Black Forest. I must say that I behaved badly in Fribourg, where there was a faculty of medicine… Since I had studied German in secondary school, I knew the German students had a tradition called "Mansour" (?): they challenged with swords and wore a mask. As a memory of the years when I studied German in secondary school, I took two Mansour (?) swords. I still have them here. My grandchildren played with them from the moment they were born; but right from the start I told them what they were: spoils of war.

There's one thing I learnt when I was in secondary school: a poem by Heinrich Heine, two sentences of which I remember. I speak very bad German. A grenadier's listening to another grenadier who's complaining: "Oh, it's a long time, I've just come back from Russia, it's awful, we've got nothing to eat, my feet are aching, it's dreadful, have a look at what's going on, and what will become of my wife, and what about my children…" he answered: "………." (?). I was 15, and what Heinrich Heine said is true: "There's something stronger in me". The thing that is stronger is something collective too.

I got back a bit on that knowledge of Germany and the spoils of war… On May 8^th '45, at 11 in the morning, I left the Black Forest to go back to France since as the saying goes: "Do as you would be done by". The Occupation was out of the question.

What do I keep in mind from the period? A notion of value. It's not about whether you do something or not, it's about why you do it. Today you're asking me to pass on. But what's "to pass on" worth if, at some point, the why is not mentioned? Now, the why is not a why of oneself; it's a why of one's family, of one's country, of what one heard at school - and that's why school is important. Ask yourself: "What's worth it?" It's also the why of the shared risk.

Is it right that, as the poem says: "I'm dying without hatred towards the German people?" It's true that the few contacts I had in Germany… Oh, I love asparagus! When we were in Alsace and in Germany, it was the asparagus season, a bit too early in Alsace, the height of the season in Germany. After Karlsruhe, I stopped in a farm and asked for asparagus. When I wanted to pay, they were astounded. The occupation had begun, and you can easily imagine that things were taken without being paid for. The nice farmer's wife was astounded.

Another time, I wanted to alter a pair of trousers from the American army into a skirt. I'd been told there was a dressmaker nearby Karlsruhe. I went to see her, and asked how much it was. She answered: "My son's a prisoner in Anvers, I hope he'll come back, and I don't want anything". One has to try to remember this, in wartime.