Teenage Resistance Fighter: With the Maquisards in Occupied France

This short book is divided into three parts. The first part is the diary of teenager Hubert Verneret, written between 1938 and 1944. The entries for the years 1938–43 are brief, yet they contain some vivid recollections, notably of the exodus of refugees in 1940. In 1944, the nineteen-year-old Verneret joined the Louis Maquis group in the south of the Morvan region. In fifty-five pages, Verneret recounts his experiences after D-Day, from the Allied bombing of Nevers to his joining of the resistance on 19 August 1944. The diary contains vivid descriptions of the Maquis camp and the retreat of the Germans from France, ending on 25 September 1944 with the dissolution of his group (‘The great adventure is over!’).

Part two of the book contains short interviews with former resisters conducted by Verneret in 1970. Also included are excerpts from the diary of Madame Forneret, a resident of Luzy (Nièvre). The final part of the book contains a potted history of the French resistance and the Louis Maquis.

The value of this book lies in its use in teaching. It offers first-hand accounts in English of aspects of the French experience of the war. Verneret’s retelling of the bombing of Nevers, for example, could be used in conjunction with Claudia Baldoli and Andrew Knapp’s book on the Allied air campaign in France. Verneret’s reasons for joining the resistance—‘we were tired of being spectators… At the age of nineteen, what could be more natural?’—and his ignorance of the group’s aims and purpose shine a light on teenage involvement in the Liberation of France. The book may be used, too, in discussions of texts produced on the resistance by former resisters themselves. The historiography of the period is wholly absent, and this is interesting given that the interviews included in part two were conducted at the moment when the resistance myth was beginning to breakdown. Likewise, the content of the diary has the potential to spark discussion in the classroom. Why are the entries prior to 1944 so short? As a boy scout, what was Verneret’s attitude to Vichy and Marshall Pétain? Why did he join the Maquis only at the eleventh hour? Both what is said and unsaid in this text makes it a good addition to undergraduate reading lists.