Arrests, Executions, Torture
Pierre Grelot, a high school student from Buffon, was arrested in June 1942 after protest marches on April 16, 1942 calling for the liberation of Professor Burgard (the founder of Valmy), who was condemned to death on October 15, 1942. Here he described the conditions under which he was held at Fresnes in a letter to his mother on February 8, 1943. Grelot was twenty years old:
"I want to tell you, mother dearest, what my life has been like since June 30. I am alone in a cell without sunlight, like most of my comrades in suffering and battle, dying of hunger, dirty, with barely anything to eat, no walks, nothing to read, suffering from the cold, and since July 7, I have been wearing handcuffs attached behind my back night and day. I would be a very poor Frenchman if I had not found a way to take them off! The only comforting element in all this suffering (I forgot to mention the lashes with whips that I received from the Gestapo), is the certainty of victory (because even if it is secret, we are able to have some news) and the heroism of my comrades who go to their deaths singing. France can be proud of having such children. […] I was judged with my comrades on October 15. It was just a comedy. We knew in advance what the verdict would be since, for no reason at all, people are condemned to death."
(G. Krivopissko, La vie à en mourir, lettres de fusillés [Living to death, letters from the shot], 2003).
