The Protestant church in Le Chambon with its famous inscription, “Love one another.”

Survivors reflect on their experiences and the lessons of Le Chambon

A plaque placed in 1979 across from the church in Le Chambon, honoring the Protestant community with the Biblical quote “The memory of the Righteous will remain forever.”

A monument at Yad Vashem at Holocaust Institute

A monument to the rescue in Le Chambon and the neighboring villages at Yad Vashem Holocaust Institute in Jerusalem

A message of peace published in the New York Times in 1958 by various world leaders, including Pastor André Trocmé, urging the representatives at the Geneva Convention to end nuclear weapons tests

A call for peace negotiations and cease-fire in Vietnam, published in the New York Times in 1965 by a group of religious leaders, including Pastor André Trocmé

Lessons and Legacies

What messages should future generations take away from the story of Le Chambon? What do you think the legacy of Le Chambon is?

reflection

One of the most enduring lessons of Le Chambon is the humility and sincerity with which the villagers approached their heroic rescue of the refugees who arrived on their doorstep. In 1996, Marie Brottes, one of the Righteous of Le Chambon, wrote the following to Yad Vashem Holocaust Institute in Jerusalem:
“It has already been fifty years since, in great secret, here on the Plateau in the Haute-Loire, we shared our bread and gave asylum to these destitute people. We did not do it for a certificate, nor for a medal, nor for a tree in the Garden of the Righteous! We simply applied God’s word according to Isaiah 58:7. How glorious it is to help one’s neighbor.”