The Hebdo 199
Memories...
November 11, 1918... It is the joy of all the French people: at last the terrible war is over!
And every year – for 106 years now – we commemorate the Armistice of 1918... Mayors make speeches, municipal bandes march, sheaves of flowers barred with a tricolor ribbon are laid at the foot of monuments to the dead.
It was after the War of 1870-1871 that these first monuments appeared; There were a thousand in 1913... More than 40,000 today. They remind the living that men died for freedom.
On my school notebooks
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name
On all pages read
On all white pages
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name
On the golden images
On the weapons of warriors
On the crown of kings
I write your name
On the jungle and desert
On nests on broom
On the echo of my childhood
I write your name
On the wonders of nights
On the white bread of the days
On the engaged seasons
I write your name
On all my rags
On the moss sun pond
On the living moon lake
I write your name
On the horizon fields
On the wings of birds
And on the mill of shadows
I write your name
On each puff of dawn
On the sea on the boats
On the crazy mountain
I write your name
On the cloud mousse
On storm sweats
On thick and bland rain
I write your name
On glittering forms
On the bells of the colors
Physical Truth
I write your name
On the awake trails
On deployed roads
On the places that overflow
I write your name
On the lamp that lights up
On the lamp that goes off
On my houses together
I write your name
On the fruit cut in half
The mirror and my room
On my empty shell bed
I write your name
On my greedy and tender dog
On his ears upright
On his clumsy leg
I write your name
On the springboard of my door
On familiar objects
On the flood of blessed fire
I write your name
All flesh
On the front of my friends
On every hand that extends
I write your name
On the glass of surprises
On attentive lips
Far above silence
I write your name
On my destroyed refuges
On my lights collapsed
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name
On absence without desires
On naked loneliness
On the steps of death
I write your name
Return to health
On the missing risk
On hope without memory
I write your name
And by the power of a word
I'm starting my life over.
I was born to know you.
To name you
Freedom!
Paul Éluard (1895-1952) – Writer, poet of the Resistance. In 1942, his beautiful poem Freedom is broadcast.
In a completely different register, the poet Georges Brassens (1921-1981)
written The War of 14-18 ; Wrongly understood, the song will make teeth growl!
In 1978, in a television show, he stated:
Those who know me know that I never intended to mock these poor men,
These poor soldiers who died in the war. For me, this song means: Long live peace!
Jeanne Monin – Research on several sites.
André Abbe
The groove
Passadoc
The groove
André Abbe
The groove comes to see me on rainy days... One of my favorite animals on my farm!
About graves, cemeteries, a return to the Toussaint mentioned in the previous gazette: [...] On November 1st, many people – believers or atheists – take advantage of this day to flower the graves of the loved ones who have disappeared, mixing the feast of all saints at the feast of all the dead. And the Cemeteries look like flower fields!
As every year at Toussaint, the grave « Koubessarian family » – driveway D square 4 – will not flower.
In the village, some old people remember... Finally, they remember that strange name that they heard children, a name that often returned to the conversations of the great people, to the bar-tobacco of the plot, a name that triggered the discussions.
Ernest arrived in October 39, for the harvest. Since many men were mobilized, his valour at work was appreciated. He was allowed to stay in the barn of the Valensol, at least what was left of it because the building had been abandoned since the fire had left nothing but ruins. That, too, made you laugh!
– I never believed in this spontaneous fire...
"You doubt everything, even God!"
– Don't mix everything, you want! However, with the insurance premium, the Valensols were able to buy a new tractor!
Thanks to Ernest, we finally had a new subject to estimate!
– Ask me what he's doing here... There's no war at home?
"It seems that his whole family was massacred; He alone came out by miracle.
– Anyway, work on it! And thanks to him, the harvest will soon be over!
On Thursday 21 December 1939, two gendarmes arrested him.
– You said he's a scumbag!
- You don't know anything! You're jealous because he and Marinette seem to hear well!
The bar boss shook his tone:
– Shut up! It's a place that denounced him because he didn't think he was well baptized...
For Ernest Koubesserian there was first Drancy, then prison and work on a German farm where he was properly treated.
It was a stupefaction when he returned in October 1947. We thought he'd been dead a long time. With his savings, he bought the barn in ruins of the Valensol, which he retold nicely and, above all, he married Marinette! The happiness of these two lasted two years until the accident: a driver in the neighbouring village who ignored the stop.
They were buried all three – as Marinette was expecting a child – under the lime tree at the end of the cemetery. And we forgot them.
As every year at Toussaint, the tomb of walkway D, square 4, will not be flowered.
Jeanne Monin
