Sisters in the Resistance: transcript of interview with Hélène Renal (English version)
Item Information
- Title:
- Sisters in the Resistance: transcript of interview with Hélène Renal (English version)
- Description:
-
This is a transcript of one of the interviews conducted by Margaret Collins Weitz for her book, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945 (1995). French résistante and journalist Hélène Rénal discusses her pre- and post-war life, focusing mainly on her participation in the French Resistance during WWII. The interview starts with what it was like to grow up in a bourgeois, Jewish background in 1930s Paris, France. Then Rénal describes her involvement in the French Resistance in Savoie, including her early work distributing flyers and making false identity cards; the challenges of coding and decoding telegrams in the “Transmission-Action” information network; how her association with her husband, who was head of a Resistance network, resulted in her arrest; the story of her interrogation and her husband’s interrogation by Klaus Barbie; her covert travels between Savoie and Paris by train as secretary to the head of the network; her imprisonment at Ravensbrück, a concentration camp in Germany; her time immediately after the war in the occupied territory of Tyrol, Austria. She also discussed aspects of her post-war life including writing a book with a group of friends from Ravensbrück; and how she became a journalist, working at Elle and Marie-Claire. She ends by reflecting on the path of her life and the certain people that influenced her and gave her opportunities, including Michel Lévy who worked at the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.
- Creator:
- Weitz, Margaret Collins
- Creator:
- Renal, Hélène
- Date:
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July 8, 1983
- Format:
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Documents
- Location:
- Suffolk University, Moakley Archive & Institute
- Collection (local):
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Margaret Collins Weitz Papers, 1945-2006 (MS109)
- Subjects:
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World War, 1939-1945--Women
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, French
European History
Military History
Women's History
- Link to Item:
- https://dc.suffolk.edu/weitz-docs/11
- Terms of Use:
-
Rights status not evaluated.
This work is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (CC BY-NC).
