France occupied by Axis Powers 1940-44 by Rostislav Botev - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

After the recent celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, and as 27 May is National Resistance Day in France, it seems an appropriate moment to look back and reflect on the bravery of a woman whose dedication to assisting people throughout that tumultuous period, won her the admiration of many.

Madeleine Barot (1909-1995) was born in Châteauroux (Indre) on 4 July. Her parents were Alexandre Auguste Barot, a teacher of literature, and Madeleine Kuss. Shortly after Madeleine’s birth, her father was sent to teach in Clermont-Ferrand (Auvergne), before World War I took him away from his career and family.  

Madeleine attended the local secondary school in Clermont-Ferrand until after the war ended, when Monsieur Barot was promoted, which necessitated a move to Versailles. In 1927, after obtaining her baccalaureate, she accepted a place at the Sorbonne University in Paris where she studied for a degree in History, followed by a graduate diploma on the 1787 Edict of Toleration and Louis XVI, which was to form part of her doctorate, her interest in this subject ultimately leading her to join the Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français. Madeleine became active in the ‘Fédé' (French Student Christian Movement), founded in 1895. This involvement was to have a significant influence on her beliefs for the rest of her life. Madeleine later confided that the group’s highly intellectual activities, which were key to nurturing many theologians of the day, had prompted her journey on the road to forging international collaboration, as she mingled with people from across the world whose religions were as diverse as their social beliefs.  While she studied, she lived at the International House for Students on the Boulevard St Michel, in Paris’s Latin Quarter.

Madeleine’s plentiful and diverse commitments enhanced the stimulus of being in such a spiritually uplifting environment, but proved detrimental to her studies. Potentially, this was the reason she failed her final examination. Nonetheless, the time spent at International House shaped her future for the benefit of many, and she met and made friends with several people who were to influence and work with her just before and during the dark days of World War II.

In 1934, she became an intern at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, but within a year, she was offered a position as a librarian at the École Française de Rome. She remained in that post until June 1940.

During July and August 1939, Madeleine chaired a committee at the World Conference of Christian Youth in Amsterdam, which was keen on promoting the amalgamation of Protestant movements, which in turn led to her involvement in the pre-war resistance movement inspired by her friend, the renowned Swiss Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, 1886-1968, who was to become a major influence on the younger generation, instilling a total belief in the confirmation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. As the situation began to deteriorate in Germany, Madeleine would start each day as Karl Barth recommended – with a bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.  Years later, Madeleine recalled her visit to Berlin in 1932:

I had gone with a group from the International House. We were received by the city’s socialist government, which was having serious problems with Hitler. Very soon after this trip, German students whom we had met began arriving as political refugees.

Madeleine was also a friend of the influential French pastor Marc Boegner, 1881-1970, which led to her being named Secretary General of CIMADE (Comité inter-mouvements auprès des évacués), a non-profit organisation founded in October 1939 by French Protestant student groups primarily to offer support and assistance to people uprooted by war. At that time, the refugees were those who were evacuated from the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine on the border with Germany, but after the German invasion in 1940, the objective changed to working with many displaced persons who were interned in camps by the Vichy Government, which controlled the ‘Free Zone’.  Over time, refugees who fled to the ‘Free Zone’ in France were from all walks of life, and the common denominator was their fear of the Nazi regime.

Pastor Boegner and others of a similar mindset concluded that the non-occupied zone of France was going to need their help, with the town of Nîmes offering a welcome and accommodation to CIMADE leaders but, of all the detention camps that had been set up, Gurs (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) was deemed the most overcrowded, with between 13,000-17,000 people, mainly women, interned there. This was the camp that CIMADE decided to focus its activities on and where Madeleine Barot was to have a significant impact. In later years, she recalled: 

Children were being born in the camp, and some had already died. We came up with the idea of layettes for new-borns. With a package under each arm, we presented ourselves at the gate. “We understand that a military camp is not equipped to take care of babies and children. Here at least is a layette, if that can be of help”. 

When Madeleine first visited, the camp commander admitted they did not even have a nurse -there was no budget for that type of care. Madeleine saw her chance and offered to find a volunteer nurse. She returned the next day with Jeanne Merle d’Aubigné, and the Commandant was impressed enough to admit them, but within a few days Jeanne reported to Madeleine that there were over 16,000 detained in the camp, and many of them were ill. Madeleine began to send in more volunteer nurses and social workers, all of whom had to leave each evening, but after a month, they were given a barrack where they could live and hold meetings. 

Madeleine gradually became involved in coordinating aid and support for evacuees and refugees in other camps in France's Free Zone, and frequently visited camps herself. She later recalled:

 Of course, our presence was not a total identification with the internees. We could leave from time to time, have a good meal, warm ourselves next to a stove in a nearby café, and contact the world outside.  To support the volunteers, almost all of whom were very young, we had to ensure frequent contact. I soon gave up specific work at Gurs to go from camp to camp, from one team to another, to bring news of the outside world and the fruits of others’ experiences.

Following the promulgation of the first raft of antisemitic laws in the ‘Free Zone’, a unified response was required; thus, on 16 and 17 September 1941, the revered Dutch theologian Willem Visser ’t Hooft, 1900-85, and Madeleine Barot created a group of fifteen people at Pomeyrol (Bouches-du-Rhône), that led to The Pomeyrol Theses being researched and written by the group, which included Madeleine, emphasising the need for resistance to Nazism by the French Protestant Reformed Church. 

In 1942, the Vichy Government appointed an inspector of the camps, and Madeleine, on hearing of this, hurried to meet him to explain that people's lives could be saved if they were taken out of the camps. This meeting led to Madeleine overseeing the organisation of reception centres at Chambon-sur-Lignon (Haute Loire), a commune already known for its Huguenot heritage, and later, for its role in saving Jews during the war. These centres were primarily for the elderly, the sick, and women with young children, selected on condition that a recognised organisation would be responsible, although the police kept them under surveillance. Madeleine was also instrumental in organising a network of safe places to hide Jewish children to avoid deportation.   

The liberation allowed many members of CIMADE to return to their homes. Madeleine Barot had, on the advice of René Courtin, 1900-64, a professor of law, friend and leading member of the Resistance, returned to Paris. She had no plans however to resume her old pre-war life: Courtin had stressed the need for CIMADE to be present when the camps were searched for collaborators and suspects, and Madeleine was put in charge of detainees suspected of collaboration in the Drancy camp, near Paris. 

Post-war, Madeleine’s activities encompassed the international stage.  In 1952, she became the director of the department responsible for cooperation between men and women within the Church, and of the Society of the Ecumenical Council of Churches (COE), as well as the head of the education department for development.  In 1968, she worked with the SODEPAX (Society for Development of Peace) under the guidance of the COE and the Catholic Church.

Between 1974 and 1979, she was secretary to the International and Economic Social Affairs Committee of the French Protestant Federation. 

In 1980, she became Vice-President of ACAT (Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture).

In 1988, she was nominated Doctor Honoris Causa of the theology faculty in Paris.  That same year, on 28 March, she was recognised on the Yad Vashem Memorial as Righteous Among The Nations.

Madeleine Barot died aged 86, on 28 December 1995, in Paris.

Joyce Hampton

Further reading

A. Jacques, ‘Madeleine Barot’ (WCC Publications, Geneva, 1989.)

C. Moorehead, ‘Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France’ (Vintage, Penguin, 2015).

Madeleine Barot (1909-1995) https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/madeleine-barot-1909-1995-2/ 

The Pomeyrol Theses https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-pomeyrol-theses/ 

Rescue in the Holocaust https://www.holocaustrescue.org/nimes-agencies-committee-to-douvaine