HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
Born in Crelien, Brittany, she grew up in Saint-Cast-le-Guildo. Her full name was Raymonde Marcelle Anne Beaumanoir, but she was always known as Anne – or sometimes Annette.
Her father, Jean, had been a semi-professional cyclist who participated in the Tour De France, and who set up his own bike shop.
Anne’s mother, Marthe Brunet, was a milkmaid and the daughter of a local farmer.
When Jean wed Marthe, he was disowned by his family, who felt that he had married beneath him.
Together, the couple opened a bistro. Anne was born illegitimately, so her parents didn’t bother to register her birth.
Anne was five years old when she fell seriously ill with meningitis. When she recovered, by her bedside was a present – a new bicycle. They also had two more ‘presents’ for her – the news they had got married and that they had finally had her birth registered.
In the 1930s, her parents, being of left-wing persuasion, helped Republican refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War. Anne was used to having strange Spaniards in the house.
After her schooling, Anne went on to study for a medical degree at the Aix -Marseilles University. She was studying there when the Nazis invaded France in 1940.
Anne immediately joined the French Communist Party (PCF), who were active in the Resistance, and she abandoned her studies. She moved firstly moved to Rennes, then to Paris, to join the French Resistance – with her parents’ approval.
Everybody in the Resistance had a pseudonym. They did not know each other’s real names in case they were captured and tortured. Anne fell in love with Roland, a tall blond German Jewish resistance fighter.
She became pregnant, but had a termination – “for the cause.”
Shortly afterwards Roland was captured by the Gestapo and deported. He escaped from the train but was recaptured and shot. She never knew his real name.
Anne was elegant and pretty with startling blue eyes. The Nazis never suspected her of being in the Resistance. Being a cycling expert, she used to steal bikes to travel around Paris so that she never had to go on the Metro (which was much harder to escape from, if cornered).
Worried about Anne’s welfare in the occupied capital city, her parents used to send her food parcels via some friends, who were also active in the resistance and were travelling in and out of Paris.
One day, these couriers told Anne that they had heard the Gestapo were about to raid the 13th arrondisement – and asked for her help to get one family out. She was asked to visit a lady called Victoria, who was sheltering some Jewish teenagers.
Anne went to Victoria’s house. There, she met the remnants of the Lisopravski family. Ruben, the father, had been a butcher in Paris and had been arrested and transported (along with some other members of the family) to a concentration camp – where he died. Only two teenagers in the family had escaped capture.
Anne took the children, Daniel (aged 16) and Simone (aged 14), away with her – just in time, as the Gestapo raided the following day.
Anne took the teenagers to a safe house, which was occupied by some resistance workers.
Shortly afterwards, this too was raided by the Gestapo. Anne was out of the city at the time. The leader of the resistance group managed to escape over the rooftops of Paris, taking the teenagers with him. The other two adults in the house were captured (and ultimately died).
When Anne returned, she decided it was no longer safe for the Lisopravskis to be in Paris. She took the teenagers to her parent’s house near Dinan.
There, Marthe, her mother, moved them from place to place. The local Nazis were very suspicious.
The Gestapo had raided Anne’s apartment in Paris (in her absence) and found potentially incriminating documents with her father’s name on them.
The Nazis subsequently searched the Beaumanoir house in Dinan, without successfully finding anything that proved their guilt. Nevertheless, they took Jean into custody on suspicion of being in the French Resistance. He was interrogated extensively but was released due to lack of evidence.
Marthe decided that as their house had been searched thoroughly, it was probably the best place to hide the teenagers. She took them back into the house, and there they stayed, safely hidden, for the rest of the war.
The Lisopravskis worked at the restaurant; Simone as a waitress, Daniel as a gardener – ‘hidden in plain sight’. The couple were treated like their own children by Anne’s parents.
After the war, Daniel and Simone kept contact with the Beaumanoir family and remained friends until the older couple died.
The day after she had rescued the teenagers by taking them south, Anne also saved a baby.
Anne was on the barricades in Paris on the day the Nazis were driven from the city (25th August 1944). On that day, she met Joseph (Jo) Roger, a doctor who had also fought the enemy. They became a couple.
Jo and Anne were also present at the Liberation of Marseilles that same month.
Looking back over her time in the French Resistance, Anne said, “By getting involved I knew I could die. It became my job. I stopped my medical studies for three years.”
After the war, Anne went back to Marseilles University to complete her degree.
She became a Professor of Neurology, undertaking ground-breaking research into epilepsy. She was an expert in electroencephalography (often known as EEG).
Anne and Jo got married in 1948. He would eventually become a nerve specialist.
In later years in Marseilles, there were many refugees from the French colony of Algeria, where war had broken out in 1954. Appalled by the terrible conditions they suffered, Anne began doing medical and social work amongst them.
The French Communist Party (PCF), did not approve of her work with the refugees. They had a big argument with her over the issue. She also objected to their support of Stalinism and the USSR (although Stalin had died in 1953). As a punishment, she was sent to work on a Marxist women’s magazine.
She refused to do so and withdrew her membership from the Communist party.
Instead, she joined the FLN (the National Liberation Front of Algeria), an illegal organisation in France.
Anne worked as a courier and chauffeur for the FLN.
In 1959, she accused the French Government of being the “New Nazis”.
Anne was immediately arrested and charged with terrorism. She was sentenced to ten years in prison by a military court, despite being a citizen. Her husband, Jo, was also arrested, but was eventually released without charge.
The whole of the city of Marseilles were shocked by her arrest, as she had become a much admired and respected citizen.
Anne was sent to Baumettes prison, where she was initially placed in solitary confinement. When the prison governor realised how educated she was, he persuaded her to teach other inmates to read and write and help compose letters for them.
The authorities had not realised that Anne was pregnant when she went to prison. Consequently, after 8 months, she was released on licence, to give birth.
Anne instantly fled to Italy and from there to Tunisia, leaving behind her husband and children (including her newly born son). There she worked for the FLN as a neuropsychiatrist.
Years later, asked about her prison experience, Anne said, “I met people I would never have met otherwise.”
When Algeria gained independence in 1962, ending the war, she worked for the government of Ahmed Ben Bella, in the Ministry of Health. Her job was to create an efficient, operational national health service. She was rewarded by being given Algerian citizenship.
There was a coup in Algeria in 1965. Anne just managed to escape in time and fled to Switzerland.
There, she was made Director of the Neurophysiological Department of the University of Geneva, where she stayed for the rest of her working career, making significant advances in her field of ‘epileptology’ (the study of epilepsy). Anne also ran all the mental health facilities in the university hospital. She also got her PhD in 1972.
Anne organised and ran the ILAE – the ‘International League Against Epilepsy.’ “It’s the only thing I’m proud of in my life.”
She retired from Geneva University in 1992 and then worked for the Mariana Foundation in Milan for 10 years. They provide economic, medical and social support for underdeveloped countries.
In 1996, Anne and her (now dead) parents were awarded the ‘Righteous Amongst Nations’ medal by the Vad Yashem Museum in Israel, given to non-Jews for helping Jewish people escape the Nazis. She was asked why she did this, putting herself and her parents at risk. She said it was simple – “I hate racism. For me it’s a physical thing.”
She further explained; “The choice to become a Resistance member was easy. There were those that covered their noses, ears and all that; but most people who looked at what we were going through had to make a choice. Luckily, I think I made the right choice.”
It was only after the Vad Yashem award that Anne was given an amnesty by her own country. French TV variously reported her as an exotic dancer, the new Marie Curie, a history teacher and finally (the only correct one), a heroic member of the resistance.
Anne returned to France in her retirement, living half the year in her hometown of Saint-Cast-le-Guildo in Brittany and the rest in Dieulefit in Southeast France.
She spent her time speaking at conferences, seminars, in schools and at educational events, challenging racism, nationalism and religious fanaticism. “Faced with Nazism, I was the oppressed. In Algeria, I was the oppressor. I fight so that no one oppresses anyone.
Her husband, Jo, died in 2012.
In 2016, a documentary was made about her life, ‘Une Vie d’Annette’. In it, she was asked about the Second World War. “I am one of the people who have been spared. At the end of the war, I was even a little ashamed that I was still alive.”
There was also a poetry book about her called ‘Epic Annette’, written by Anne Weber, who became a close friend of hers.
Anne also wrote an autobiography in 2019, entitled, ‘The Fire of Memory’.
She remained active in the cause of supporting refugees, demanding the government take in many more people fleeing from Syria.
Anne had a stroke in 2020.
She died in Quimper.
The ILAE said, “She was an amazing, tremendous woman. She had experienced incredible bravery during adversity and was adulated by all of her students.”
RIP – Resistance Involving Parents
