Between 1940 and 1944, the villagers of a remote mountain region in south-central France quietly defied their own government and the occupying forces of Nazi Germany, saving the lives of some 5,000 refugees, including about 3,500 Jews. While the rest of the world seethed with the organized violence of all-out war, this group of people created a clandestine safe haven of activist Christian love, opening their homes to strangers from all over Europe. They knew full well that they and their families risked deportation or execution if they were caught by the Gestapo. But they had reached the conclusion that...

André Trocmé’s childhood and adolescence unfolded in a stable, protected, middle-class setting, but also in a rather lonely atmosphere. His father owned a lace factory in Saint-Quentin, a small town located in Picardy, northern France and, in this well-to-do Protestant family, there was little room for fantasy. In this passage André, as an adult, remembers the atmosphere of his early years.¹

I considered my childhood home normal: eighteen rooms plus the kitchen and the service rooms … So large for me as a little boy that I only got to find my way around it gradually. Duty was the key...

1925 and 1926 were very significant years in the lives of Magda and André Trocmé. Both made trips to the United States where their paths crossed. By the spring of 1925, André had completed his studies at the Protestant theological school in Paris and was due to start work as a pastor, but instead he decided to continue his studies. He won the scholarship awarded every year by the Union Theological Seminary in New York to a French student and left for New York at the end of the summer of 1925.¹ Like his predecessors (including Édouard Theis), he was...

After spending seven years in the north of France, Magda and André Trocmé wanted a change. So in April 1934, André applied for the position of minister inMontrouge-Malakoff-Clamart, in the suburbs of Paris. He was somewhat familiar with this church because he had helped build the parish hall approximately ten years before, while still a theology student. But his appointment, first in Montrouge- Malakoff-Clamart and then two months later in Thonon-les-Bains, was blocked by the authorities of the Evangelical Reformed Church, who disapproved of his pacifism.¹ “I will end up in the street,” Trocmé said, “or on the steps of...

In the 1930s, as the threat of war accelerated, André Trocmé became very active in peace and reconciliation activities throughout Europe. Lucid observers of the international situation, André and Magda worried about the ability of nations to maintain peaceful relations as hostilities increased. In consequence, they participated in several pacifist demonstrations in France and other countries.

In 1937, in one of his lectures¹, André declared:

We have seen the rise of Italian, German and Japanese fascism, with their internal codes of honour and sacrifice, their social dogma and their philosophy of history. If anyone has any doubts about the subjective...

In 1940, while Europe was plunging into a new armed conflict that trapped millions of people, André Trocmé found himself confronted with a painful dilemma. Although he could not be called up, his sense of responsibility towards his family and his country were absolute. On the other hand, his commitment to non-violence on religious grounds would not tolerate any compromise. For such a man, the ultimate guidepost is obedience to Jesus Christ; making decisions on this basis was the best way for André to reconcile his duties as a citizen, a father, and a pastor. And despite the arduous situation...

After two raids on foreign-born Jews in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon on 26 August 1942 and 24 February 1943, a new police operation took place on 23 June 1943. This time, the Gestapo arrested Daniel Trocmé,¹ André’s nephew, as well as eighteen young students who were living in the Maison des Roches.² The people of Le Chambonsur-Lignon were still in shock about these arrests when, in July, a member of the French underground who said he was a double agent came to warn André that the Germans wanted to kill him.

It is possible that the visit was a strategy by armed...

As soon as the war was over, Magda and André Trocmé turned their attention to theMouvement International de la Réconciliation (MIR). The military operations having ended, there was a small window of opportunity in which to reinforce the idea of peace and forgiveness among the nations. The Trocmés accepted countless invitations to serve as observers, conciliators, or speakers at conferences that took them away from the parish in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon on a regular basis.

Between 1946 and 1949, André worked as aminister on a half-time basis. He dedicated most of his energy to pacifist activities. During these transitional years, his...

In 1949, André Trocmé was appointed European Secretary of the Mouvement International de la Réconciliation (MIR) and the Trocmé family left the manse in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. For nearly a dozen years, Magda and André were invited to speak in countries around the world, from Finland to Vietnam, from the USA to Japan, from the Soviet Union to Algeria. In several places in a world that was suffering and torn apart by conflict, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, they watched, asked questions, listened, and tried to understand the chaos of the time in which they lived. In July 1958,...

The world entered the nuclear age in 1945. The American bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August and of Nagasaki on 9 August brought about the surrender of Japan and therefore the end of the Second World War, but this massive destruction also plunged people into a lasting state of anxiety about the future. The fact that the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and to a lesser extent Great Britain and France were building nuclear arsenals served only to increase the fear and mutual distrust among these powerful nations. The construction of numerous reactors to produce electricity added to concerns...

Algeria, which had been a French colony since 1830, fought for independence from the mid-fifties to the early sixties. The Algerian War began on 1 November 1954 (the Toussaint Rouge, or Red All Saints Day) with an insurrection of Muslims in the AurèsMountain region. It ended on 18 March 1962, when agreements were signed in Évian, France, to grant Algeria independence as of 1 July 1962. Approximately one million French citizens who had supported the French colonialists, including most of the “Pieds-Noirs” (people of European heritage born in Algeria) and “harkis” (Muslim Algerian loyalists, many of whom fought alongside the...

In 1960, after ten years with Magda at his side at the helm of the European secretariat of the MIR Algeria, André Trocmé returned to serving a parish. Still at odds with the authorities of the Reformed Church in France over his pacifism, he decided it would be better to accept a position in Switzerland, at the Saint-Gervais Church in Geneva. He remained there until he retired in 1970.

Although his return to parish life meant he had a great deal of work to look after every day, this did not prevent André from being involved in social justice activities...