Geneviève on her mother: Marie says: “My entire family were pacifists and supporters of Franco-German reconciliation, but from 1936 we were already expecting the inevitable war. We were directly against Pétain and rejected the armistice from day one.”

In 1942, as a student at the École Normale in Sèvres, Marie joined her fiancé Marc Zamansky, a student at the École Normale, in the Mithridate network, for which he was responsible in the occupied zone.

Resistance was a family affair. Her father Henri, who was responsible for buildings and railways at the SNCF (national railway), informed Marc, her fiancé, about German train movements and work carried out by the occupation. Her mother, Marguerite, principal at the school on Rue des Archives in Paris, produced “false papers” for her Jewish students. Her brother, Marc, delivered messages. Marie acted as a “cover” for her fiancé while searching for a suitable parachute drop site.

Marc Zamansky was arrested in July 1943. Marie and her parents were arrested on August 5, 1943, in Corrèze. Marie and her mother were imprisoned in Limoges, then Rennes, and finally Romainville.

Both were deported to Ravensbrück on April 16, 1944, arriving with convoy “35000” on April 22. In the first months, they were “available labor.” In September, her mother became a “knitter” in very distinguished company: Emilie Tillion, who spoke every day of a different country, Piguet, Frère, Elie, Mother Maria, an orthodox nun, Mother Elisabeth of Lyon, and many others. Marie, who did not want to work for the war effort, was assigned to a forest labor detail.

Marie and her mother were liberated on April 22, 1945, by the Swedish Red Cross and after a few weeks in Sweden, returned to France on June 25, 1945.

Her father and brother had also been deported: Henri was gassed in Hartheim. Marc, a young seminarian, was deported to Auschwitz and then to Flossenbürg, where he died.

Her fiancé, Marc Zamansky, was deported to Mauthausen, Melk, and Ebensee; he returned. Marie and Marc married in July 1945 and had eight children.

Marie was a member of the Association of Formerly Interned and Deported Women of the Resistance (l’ADIR) and served as its administrator from 1999 until its dissolution in 2005.

Geneviève