Raymond Samuel Aubrac

Raymond Samuel was born in France on 31st July, 1914, the same day that the French Socialist leader and pacifist Jean Jaur?s was assassinated. After studying law he took a master's degree in science from Harvard University.
On his return to France he became an engineer. He was also an active member of the French Communist Party, he married fellow member, Lucie Bernard, in December, 1939. He was later to say that the decision he was most proud of was choosing his partner. "You know," he said, "in life there are only three or four fundamental decisions to make. The rest is just luck."
After the defeat of France in 1940, the couple moved to the unoccupied zone in Lyon. During this period his parents, Albert and H?l?ne Samuel, were deported and died in a Nazi Concentration Camp. In an attempt to disguise their Jewish background they took the name Aubrac. After meeting Emmanuel d'Astier, the three activists established the left-wing Lib?ration-sud resistance group. For the next two years Lucie and Raymond, lived double lives as resistance organizers. They were also involved in the publication of the Lib?ration newspaper.
Lucie Aubrac gave birth to her first child, Jean-Pierre, in May 1941. She often took her child to meetings with resistance leaders such as Jean Moulin, to divert the attention of the Milice. According to her own account she "delivered packages, printed propaganda and hatched and executed escape plans."
At the end of 1942 the German Army occupied the whole of France and Lyon became the headquarters of Gestapo chief, Klaus Barbie. In March 1943, Raymond Aubrac was arrested. However, after two months of being interviewed he was released.
On 7th June 1943, Ren? Hardy, an important member of the resistance in France, was arrested and tortured by Klaus Barbie and the Gestapo. They eventually obtained enough information to arrest Raymond Aubrac and Jean Moulin at an important meeting of the French Resistance at a doctor's surgery at Caluire in Lyon on 21st June, 1943. Moulin was tortured before being moved to Paris where he died from his injuries on 8th July 1943.
Aubrac was held and tortured in Montluc Prison in Lyon. He later recalled that Barbie got pleasure from making his victims suffer. "I had the impression that he wasn't really interested in the answers of the questions he was asking. His pleasure was to feel his power, his force, by torturing."
Lucie Aubrac, who was pregnant with her second child, visited the prison and claimed that she was unmarried and that Raymond was the father of her expected child. She pleaded that Raymond be allowed to marry her before his execution. The Gestapo believed her story and allowed the couple to get married. While being transferred back to prison after the "marriage" armed members of the resistance attacked the lorry and freed him. Lucie and Raymond went into hiding until a plane could take them back to London, where they arrived in February, 1944. After the liberation of France General Charles De Gaulle appointed Raymond Aubrac as the Commissioner of the Republic for Marseilles (1944-45).
Raymond Aubrac, a member of the French Communist Party, established the Bureau of Study and Research of Modern Industry. He also worked as a high official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
Lucie Aubrac visited schools and told the students about her experiences during the war. She also wrote a couple of books about the French Resistance including Outwitting the Gestapo (1984). She once said: "Resistance is not just something locked away in the period 1939-45. Resistance is a way of life, an intellectual and emotional reaction to anything which threatens human liberty."
In 1983 Klaus Barbie was arrested in Bolivia. Before his trial, Barbie let it be known that in court he would reveal new facts about the resistance. This included the claim that Raymond Aubrac became an informer after being arrested in March, 1943, and that he had been responsible for the arrest of Jean Moulin.
Barbie died in September, 1991. Soon afterwards the so-called "Testament of Barbie" was released that once again accused Raymond Aubrac of being an informer. In 1994 Aubrac published his book, The French Resistance. In 1997 the journalist, Gerald Chauvy published a book that relied on information supplied by Barbie to suggest that Aubrac had betrayed Jean Moulin. In 1998 Raymond and Lucie Aubrac won a libel case against Chauvy.
Raymond Aubrac, aged 97, died at the Val de Grace Military Hospital in Paris on 10th April, 2012.