View source for Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2023}}
{{Infobox French commune
|name                   = Le Chambon-sur-Lignon
|native name            = {{native name|oc|Lo Chambon}}
|commune status         = Commune
|image                  = Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (Haute-Loire, Fr) mairie.JPG
|caption                = Town hall
|image coat of arms     = Blason ville fr Chambon-sur-Lignon (HauteLoire).svg
|arrondissement         = Yssingeaux
|canton                 = Mézenc
|mayor                  = Jean-Michel Eyraud<ref>{{cite web|title=Répertoire national des élus: les maires|url=https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/r/2876a346-d50c-4911-934e-19ee07b0e503|publisher=data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises|date=13 September 2022|language=fr}}</ref>
|term                   = 2020&ndash;2026
|coordinates            = {{coord|45.0617|4.3031|format=dms|display=inline,title}}
|elevation m            = 1000
|elevation min m        = 874
|elevation max m        = 1139
|area km2               = 41.71
|population             = {{France metadata Wikidata|population_total}}
|population date        = {{France metadata Wikidata|population_as_of}}
|population footnotes   = {{France metadata Wikidata|population_footnotes}}
|INSEE                  = 43051
|postal code            = 43400
}}
{{Righteous Among the Nations}}

'''Le Chambon-sur-Lignon'''{{efn|{{IPA|fr|lə ʃɑ̃bɔ̃ syʁ liɲɔ̃}}, literally "Le Chambon on [[Lignon du Velay|Lignon]]"; {{langx|oc|Lo Chambon|label=[[Auvergnat dialect|Auvergnat]]}}}} is a [[Communes of France|commune]] in the [[Haute-Loire]] [[Departments of France|department]] in south-central France.

Residents have been primarily [[Huguenot]] or Protestant since the 17th century. During [[World War II]] these Huguenot residents made the commune a haven for [[Jews]] and other refugees fleeing from [[Nazi Germany]] and countries controlled by Nazi Germany.  The refugees were hidden both within the town and in the countryside or were helped to flee to neutral Switzerland. Humanitarian organizations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and local religious leaders had a priority of hiding children to protect them from deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Estimates of the number of people sheltered in Chambon and its area range from 800 to 5,000. In 1990 the town was one of two collectively honoured as the [[Righteous Among the Nations]] by [[Yad Vashem]] in Israel for saving Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. The other awardee was the Dutch village of [[Nieuwlande]].

==Geography==

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is located on the Vivaris-Lignon plateau in the highland [[Massif Central]] of southern France. The town lies in the middle of the commune, on the right bank of the [[Lignon du Velay]] River, which flows north-northwestward through the commune and forms part of its northwestern border.<ref>{{cite web |title=Le Chambon-sur-Lignon |url=https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/chambon-sur-lignon-2/ |website=Musee Protestant}}</ref> Le Chambon is one of the three largest villages of seventeen on the plateau. The region has traditionally been isolated with a population of mostly farmers who raised cattle and sheep.<ref name="Robins">{{cite journal |last1=Robins |first1=Marianne Ruel |title=A Grey Site of Memory: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and Protestant Exceptionalism on the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon |journal=Church |date=2013 |volume=82 |issue=2 |page=327 |doi=10.1017/S0009640713000103 |url=https://doi.org/10.101/S0009640713000103 |access-date=8 December 2024|url-access=subscription }}</ref>   

===Climate===
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon has a Cfb climate (Mild temperate humid, warm summers, cool winters) by the [[Köppen climate classification]] system. The altitude of almost {{cvt|1000|m|ft}} results in cooler summers and colder winters than in most places of similar latitudes in France.       
{{Weather box
|location = Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France 
|metric first = yes
|single line = yes
|temperature colour = pastel
|Jan high C = 3.5
|Feb high C = 4.3
|Mar high C = 8.4
|Apr high C = 11.7
|May high C = 15.5 
|Jun high C = 20.2
|Jul high C = 22.3
|Aug high C = 22.0
|Sep high C = 17.9
|Oct high C = 13.6
|Nov high C = 7.4
|Dec high C = 4.5
|year high C = 13.7
|Jan mean C = 0.5
|Feb mean C = 0.5
|Mar mean C = 4.1
|Apr mean C = 7.3
|May mean C = 11.1
|Jun mean C = 15.5
|Jul mean C = 17.5
|Aug mean C = 17.2
|Sep mean C = 13.4
|Oct mean C = 9.8
|Nov mean C = 4.4
|Dec mean C = 1.5
|year mean C = 
|Jan low C = -2.2
|Feb low C = -2.7
|Mar low C = 0.2
|Apr low C = 2.9
|May low C = 6.7
|Jun low C = 10.6
|Jul low C = 12.6
|Aug low C = 12.5
|Sep low C = 9.3
|Oct low C = 6.4
|Nov low C = 1.6
|Dec low C = -1.1
|year low C = 
|precipitation colour = green
|Jan precipitation mm = 81
|Feb precipitation mm = 63
|Mar precipitation mm = 68
|Apr precipitation mm = 106
|May precipitation mm = 117
|Jun precipitation mm = 95
|Jul precipitation mm = 86
|Aug precipitation mm = 90
|Sep precipitation mm = 109
|Oct precipitation mm = 125
|Nov precipitation mm = 125
|Dec precipitation mm = 79
|year precipitation mm = 
|source 1 = <ref>{{cite web |url=https://en.climate-data.org/europe/france/auvergne/le-chambon-sur-lignon-64904/ |website=Le Chambon-sur-Lignon Climate |publisher=Climate Data |access-date=6 December 2024 |title=Le Chambon-sur-Lignon climate: Weather le Chambon-sur-Lignon & temperature by month }}</ref>
}}

==Early history==
In the 16th century, Chambon was a refuge for French Protestants ([[Huguenots]]) who fled persecution by [[Roman Catholic]]s, by taking refuge in the remote Massif Central. Chambon and its region, still called the "Protestant Mountain", continues to have mostly Protestant residents.<ref name="Isalska">{{cite web |last1=Isalska |first1=Anita |title=A French village committed to deception |url=https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180806-a-french-village-committed-to-deception |website=British Broadcasting Corporation |access-date=8 December 2024}}</ref>

Tourism became important to the economy in the late 19th century. Among the tourists were children brought to Chambon from polluted industrial cities for their health and wealthy Protestants who built summer homes. By the 1940s, the population of Chambon was "900 in the winter, 6,000 in the summer, and 4,000 in September." The influx of tourists resulted in the establishment of 42 hotels, 50 ''pensions'', and 12 youth hostels in the region, most of them in the village of Chambon. Tourism declined during World War II and the existence of these unused facilities, the familiarity of the residents with outsiders, and the town's history as a refuge against repression contributed to the welcome Chambon and its region gave refugees.{{sfn|Robins|2013|pages=327-328}}

==World War II refugees==
[[File:André Trocmé, Roger Darcissac, Edourd Theis - mars 1943.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Trocmé, Darcissac, and Theis (1943)]]
The influx of refugees into Chambon and the Haute Loire department began in the 1930s with the coming of power of the [[Nazis]] in Germany in 1933 and the defeat of the [[Spanish republicans|Republicans]] in the [[Spanish Civil War]] in 1939. Chambon was not especially welcoming to these first refugees. In 1939, Spanish refugees were asked to leave at the beginning of tourist season and in 1940 anti-Nazi refugees, mostly Jews, were interned in a camp near Chambon before being sent to the [[Gurs internment camp]] as "undesirable" aliens in October. Poor conditions, including starvation, for people confined in the internment camps scattered around southern France led humanitarian organizations involved in aid to the internees to establish a priority of keeping people out of the internment camps and getting children out of the internment camps, even though that policy could result in separation of children from their parents.{{sfn|Robins|2013|pages=331-332}} In August 1942 when the first deportations of Jews from southern ([[Vichy France|Vichy]]) France to Germany took place the magnitude of the threat to the lives of Jews became apparent.<ref name="Lowrie">{{cite book |last1=Lowrie |first1=Donald A. |title=The Hunted Children |date=1963 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |pages=194-195, 203-204}}</ref>

Jews were the most numerous of the refugees in Chambon during World War II but the town also sheltered anti-Nazi Germans and people active in the [[French Resistance]] to the German occupation or avoiding compulsory labor service, the [[Service du travail obligatoire]], imposed on France by Germany.<ref name="Sayers and Rayski">{{cite book |last1=Sayers |first1=Will |last2=Rayski |first2=Adam |title=The Choice of the Jews under Vichy: Between Submission and Resistance |date=2015 |publisher=University of Notre Dame Press |location=South Bend, IN |isbn=9780268040215 |page=186 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/42183 |access-date=8 December 2024}}</ref> Whole families from cities such as [[Nice]] and [[Lyon]] sought shelter in Chambon. Many of the refugees continued onward from Chambon to safety in neutral Switzerland, assisted by the former mayor of Chambon, Charles Guillon.<ref name="Lazare">{{cite book |last1=Lazare |first1=Lucien |title=Rescue as Resistance: how Jewish organizations fought the Holocaust in France |date=1996 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=0231101244 |page=290}}</ref>{{sfn|Sayers|Rayski|2015|page=187}} 

Several persons were prominent as participants in Chambon's shelter of Jews and anti-Nazi refugees: Protestant pastors and pacifists [[André Trocmé]] and [[:fr:Edouard Theis|Eduoard Theis]]; Charles Guillon; and schoolteacher [[:fr:Roger Darcissac|Roger Darcissac]] who forged documents for Jews to conceal their identities.<ref name="Browning">{{cite journal |last1=Browning |first1=Christopher R. |title=From Humanitarian Relief to Holocaust Rescue; Tracy Strong Jr., Vichy Internment Camps, and the Maison des Roches in Le Chambon |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |date=2016 |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=224–225 |doi=10.1093/hgs/dew031 |doi-broken-date=12 July 2025 |url=https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/30/2/211/1749501 |access-date=8 December 2024}}</ref>{{sfn|Robins|2013|page=322}} Schoolteacher [[Daniel Trocmé]], cousin of André, died in a German concentration camp.<ref name="Chater">{{cite journal |last1=Chater |first1=Kathleen |title=The legacy of the Huguenots in wartime France |journal=Huguenot Society Journal |date=2014 |volume=30 |issue=2 |page=186 |doi=10.3828/huguenot.2014.30.02.181 |url=https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/huguenot.2014.30.02.181 |access-date=8 December 2024|url-access=subscription }}</ref> All 13 Protestant pastors in Chambon participated in the rescue efforts.{{sfn|Robins|2013|page=321}}

The Chambon region attracted the attention of French and international humanitarian organizations operating in Vichy France. Among the organizations involved were [[Cimade]], a French youth organization, the Jewish [[Œuvre de secours aux enfants|OSE]], the [[Swiss Red Cross]], the [[American Friends Service Committee]] (Quakers), and the [[European Student Relief]] Fund, represented by an American, Tracy Strong, Jr. The Vichy French, although collaborators with the Germans, were initially amendable to releasing children from the overcrowded camps to live in children's homes.{{sfn|Browning|2016|page=224}}

In late 1940, André Trocmé met with Burns Chalmers who worked for the Quaker AFSC, in [[Marseille]]. Chalmers and Trocmé agreed to establish homes for refugee children utilizing the now-vacant tourist hotels in Chambon. Chalmers offered financial support for the venture. One of the advantages of Chambon as a refuge was the abundance of food as compared to the scarcity in other parts of France. In May 1941, the Swiss established the first children's home in Chambon. Seven children's homes housing 240 children were established by the end of 1942. Former mayor Charles Guillon was well-connected and helped Strong and the YMCA open one of the children's home at the Maison des Roches in October 1941. Eighty-six children, at least 46 of whom were Jews, were housed at Maison des Roches for varying periods of time.{{sfn|Browning|2016|pages=224-227}}{{sfn|Robins|2013|page=322-323}}

In late summer 1942, Vichy Minister of Youth [[:fr:Georges Lamirand|Georges Lamirand]]  visited Chambon. A delegation of thirty students and two pastors told Lamirand that they would resist any attempt "to molest the Jewish guests in our village."{{sfn|Lowrie|1963|pages=195-198}} The first French police raid on Chambon to arrest Jews began on August 26 and lasted three weeks. Twenty-one Jewish students successfully hid in the countryside until the police departed three weeks later. Many of the students made their way to safety in Switzerland.{{sfn|Browning|2016|page=233}} The only successful raid came on June 29, 1943 when fifty German police raided a children's home in Chambon and arrested 25 students, 20 of them Jewish, and teacher Daniel Trocmé. Few of those arrested survived the war. Most of the time the French authorities and the German commander in the region chose to ignore the existence of Jewish refugees and anti-Nazi resistors in Chambon. The German army commander was well aware of the presence of the Jews and other refugees. The Germans commandeered three hotels in Chambon for convalescence of their wounded and ill soldiers.{{sfn|Sayers|Rayski|2015|page=187-188, 352}}{{sfn|Browning|2016|page=234}}    

While the children's homes received the attention of the humanitarian organizations, many refugee children and families were integrated into the general population and lived with local farmers who made up 70 percent of the region's population. Historians have focused on the children's homes, but encountered silence about other rescue activities. A teacher said, "Nobody talked about what was going on in Le Chambon...I did not know at all that a colleague with a strong accent who taught Latin and Greek was a rabbi" A pastor said, "we never really discussed refugees...we also never told parishioners that they were hosting Jews, who had become 'non-Jews' with their new identification papers...if they were hiding someone and were caught, they could always sincerely say, 'I did not know he was Jewish.'"{{sfn|Robins|2013|page=327, 338-339}}

Because of the secrecy involved, estimates of the number of Jews rescued in the Chambon region vary widely up to 5,000, counting those who passed through, resided temporarily, or continued onwards to Switzerland.{{sfn|Chater|2014|page=183}} Eight hundred to one thousand is a common estimate of Jews sheltered throughout the war in Chambon.<ref name="Curtis">{{cite journal |last1=Curtis |first1=Michael |title=Vichy France and Holocaust |journal=Society |date=1997 |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=18–34 |doi=10.1007/BF02912205 |url=https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF02912205.pdf?pdf=core}}</ref>{{sfn|Browning|2016|page=235}}

==Present day==
The ethos and practice of sheltering refugees continues, with migrants coming from many war zones, including [[Congo Crisis|Congo]], [[Libyan Crisis (2011–present)|Libya]], [[Rwandan genocide|Rwanda]], [[South Sudan]], [[Kosovo War|Kosovo]] and [[Chechen–Russian conflict|Chechnya]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Levine |first1=Joshua |title=The Dispossessed: This French Town Has Welcomed Refugees for 400 Years |others=Photographs by Lucian Perkins |magazine=Smithsonian Magazine |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/chambon-french-town-refugees-180969356/ |language=en |date=July–August 2018 |page=76}}</ref>

In 2021 the commune was bequeathed around €2m by Eric Schwam who was hidden in a school in 1943 and remained until 1950.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Saint-Étienne|first=Agence France-Presse in|date=2021-01-29|title=Man leaves €2m to French village that hid his family from Nazis|url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/french-village-chambon-sur-lignon-inherits-fortune-austrian-fled-nazis|access-date=2021-01-29|website=the Guardian|language=en}}</ref>

==Population==
{{Historical populations
|align = none
|cols = 2
|percentages = pagr
|source = EHESS<ref name=ehess>{{Cassini-Ehess|7784|Le Chambon-sur-Lignon}}</ref> and INSEE (1968-2017)<ref name=pophist>[https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/4515315?geo=COM-43051#ancre-POP_T1 Population en historique depuis 1968], INSEE</ref>
|1793 |1730
|1821 |1740
|1846 |2280
|1872 |2155
|1901 |2670
|1926 |2593
|1946 |3202
|1962 |3096
|1968 |2846
|1975 |2811
|1982 |2791
|1990 |2854
|1999 |2642
|2007 |2662
|2012 |2609
|2017 |2470
|2020|2420
}}

==Honors==
*In 1981 the entire town was awarded an honorary degree by [[Haverford College]] in [[Pennsylvania]] in recognition of its humanitarian efforts. 
*In 1982, documentary filmmaker [[Pierre Sauvage]] – who was born and sheltered in Le Chambon – returned there to film ''Weapons of the Spirit''<ref>[http://www.chambon.org/weapons_en.htm ''Weapons of the Spirit'']</ref> (1989). 
*In 1990, for risking their lives to rescue Jews, the entire town was recognized as "[[Righteous Among the Nations]]". A small garden and plaque on the grounds of the [[Yad Vashem]] memorial to the [[Holocaust]] in Israel was dedicated to the people of Chambon-sur-Lignon. 
*In 2004 French President [[Jacques Chirac]] officially recognized the heroism of the town.<ref name="chirac"/><ref>{{cite web | url=https://forward.com/opinion/4307/among-the-villagers-of-le-chambon/ | title=Among the Villagers of Le Chambon | work=[[The Forward]] | date=October 8, 2004 | access-date=April 6, 2019 | author=Sauvage, Pierre}}</ref> 
*[[File:Chateau.pont.de.mars.1.jpg|thumb|The Pont-de-Mars Castle in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon]]In January 2007 they were honoured along with the other French Righteous Among the Nations in a ceremony at the [[Panthéon, Paris|Panthéon]] in Paris.<ref name="chirac">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927121013/http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/news.php?id_article=794 Jacques Chirac Honors French World War II Saviors], [[European Jewish Congress]], 11 April 2007.</ref>

Eric Schwam, an Austrian man who fled the Nazis with his family during the Second World War and found refuge in the village, bequeathed approximately €2 million for the village.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/french-village-chambon-sur-lignon-inherits-fortune-austrian-fled-nazis|title=Man leaves €2m to French village that hid his family from Nazis|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=2021-01-29|access-date=2021-01-29}}</ref>

==Education==
The town of Chambon-sur-Lignon was home to [[Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International]], a private boarding school founded in 1938 by local Protestant ministers [[André Trocmé]] and Edouard Theis. The school closed its doors in 2014 due to financial troubles and declining enrollment, three years after the rape and murder of a 14-year-old student.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/affaire-agnes-le-college-cevenol-ferme-ses-portes-10-02-2014-1790195_23.php|title = Affaire Agnès : Le collège Cévenol ferme ses portes|date = 10 February 2014}}</ref>

==Personalities==
[[Alexander Grothendieck]], a central figure of 20th-century mathematics, was among the Jewish children sheltered during the war.

The paternal grandfather of actor [[Timothée Chalamet]] was from the town.<ref>{{cite web |title=Timothée Chalamet, petit-fils d'un pasteur du Chambon-sur-Lignon, en lice pour l'Oscar du meilleur acteur |url=https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/medias-people/le-petit-fils-d-un-pasteur-du-chambon-sur-lignon-en-lice-pour-l-oscar-du-meilleur-acteur-1520005135 |website=France Bleu |language=fr |date=2 March 2018}}</ref>

==Popular culture==
Canadian writer [[Malcolm Gladwell]] uses Chambon-sur-Lignon in his book [[David and Goliath (book)|''David and Goliath'']] as an example of how the rebellious origin of its people influenced their actions when protecting Jewish people during the Second World War.{{sfn | Gladwell | 2013 | pp= 270-296}} The town also appears in the last book French author [[Romain Gary]] published before his death, ''The Kites'', and recounts the bravery of its inhabitants in the face of danger. In [[R.J. Palacio | R.J. Palacio's]] [[White Bird (film)|White Bird]], Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is the inspiration for the fictional town of Aubervilliers-aux-Bois.

==Twin towns==
* [[Fislisbach]], Switzerland
* [[Meitar]], Israel - since November 9, 2006

== References ==
{{notelist}}
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* {{cite book | last=Gladwell | first=Malcolm | title=David and Goliath : underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants | publisher=Little, Brown and Company | location=New York | year=2013 | isbn=978-0-316-20436-1 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/davidgoliath00malc_0 }}
* {{cite book | last=Grose | first=Peter | title=A Good Place to Hide: How One French Community Saved Thousands Of Lives During World War II | location=[[New York City|New York]] | publisher=Pegasus Books LLC | year=2015 | isbn=978-1-60598-692-0}} 
* {{cite book | last=Hallie | first=Philip P | title=Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There | location=[[New York City|New York]] | publisher=Harper & Row | year=1979 | isbn=0-06-011701-X}}
* {{cite video | people=Sauvage, Pierre | date=1989 | url=http://www.chambon.org/weapons_en.htm | title = Weapons of the Spirit (Les armes de l'esprit) | medium=Documentary | location=USA/France | publisher= Chambon Foundation}} Aired in the United States by the [[PBS]].
* {{cite book | last=Matas | first=Carol | author-link=Carol Matas | title=Greater Than Angels | location=[[New York City|New York]] | publisher=Simon & Schuster | date=April 1, 1998 | isbn=0-689-81353-8}} A book for youngsters.
* {{cite book | last=Moorehead | first=Caroline | author-link=Caroline Moorehead |title=[[Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France]] | publisher=Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers | location=New York, NY | year=2014 | isbn=978-0-06-220247-5 }}
* {{cite book | last=Paxson | first=Maggie | title=The Plateau | publisher=Riverhead Press | location=New York | year=2019 | isbn=9781594634758 }}
* {{cite book | last=Sémelin | first=Jacques | title=Persécutions et entraides dans la France occupée : comment 75 % des juifs de France ont échappé à la mort | publisher=Seuil Arènes | location=Paris | year=2013 | isbn=978-2-35204-235-8 | language=fr }}

==See also==
*[[Communes of the Haute-Loire department]]

==External links==
* [http://www.chambon.org/index.htm Chambon Foundation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100712221104/http://www.chambon.org/index.htm |date=12 July 2010 }}
* [http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/trocme.asp About Le Chambon-sur-Lignon] at [[Yad Vashem]] site
*{{IMDb title|id=0100905|title=Weapons of the Spirit}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070812033002/http://www.lecevenol.org/index.php?id=26 College-Lycee International Cevenol]
* https://web.archive.org/web/20090507153307/http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/rescuchr.htm
* http://www.hiddenonthemountain.com/

{{commons category}}
{{Haute-Loire communes}}
{{Holocaust France}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chambonsurlignon}}
[[Category:Communes of Haute-Loire]]
[[Category:The Holocaust in France]]
[[Category:French Righteous Among the Nations]]