Published
Video length: 4 min
80 years of the Liberation: children in 1944, Monique Hardy and Colette Ducoulombier tell their stories
80 years of the Liberation: children in 1944, Monique Hardy and Colette Ducoulombier tell their stories
(france 2)
Those who lived through the Liberation of Paris are no longer so numerous. Monique and Colette, both in their nineties, recount the memories of the little girls they were on August 25, 1944.
They are now 98 and 92 years old. They were 14 and 9 when Paris fell to the Germans. It was with the eyes of a child that Monique Hardy and Colette Ducoulombier observed the enemy. “It’s the sound of boots that I remember,” says Colette. “If you weren’t part of the resistance, they left you alone,” explains Monique. Young Colette’s uncle is a member of the Resistance, a secret that her parents consider too heavy to tell a child.. “I was talkative, I was in high school, I absolutely must not know,” she remembers.
But some realities are harder to disguise, such as shortages and rationing. “I saw my mother queue for two hours for a small piece of bread,” tells Colette. Radio London is the only escape for the two young girls. The airwaves are also the first voice of the Liberation of Paris, which they witness, as well as the purge. Today, mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, they strive to tell this story, so that the memory never disappears.
