Jean Villeret, a former resistance fighter deported to Struthof, the Nazi concentration camp in Natzwiller (Bas-Rhin), died on Monday at the age of 100, the European Centre for Deported Resistance Fighters (CERD) announced on Tuesday 21 November. "A transmitter of history and memory, Jean Villeret devoted part of his life to bearing witness to the hell of the concentration camp among the younger generations," Cerd said in a statement. Bearing witness "is not a duty of remembrance, it is simply the fight I am waging today, for a better world," he said in June before public meetings in Alsace.
Born in 1922 in the Ardennes, Jean Villeret joined the Resistance in 1943 as part of the "Est-34" network of the Francs-tireurs et Partisans (FTP). He had been deported to the Struthof concentration camp on 7 July 1944 as an NN ('Nacht und Nebel', 'night and fog', destined to disappear without a trace) prisoner at the age of 21.
'Miraculous'
He was then deported to Allach, a subcamp of Dachau (Germany), and to Dachau itself. It was there that he was liberated by the Americans on April 29, 1945. He called himself "miraculous." He then spent his professional career at EDF-GDF, where he was particularly involved with the Central Council for Social Works (CCOS).
In 2020, he was awarded the insignia of Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour. Olivier Capitanio, president of the Val-de-Marne Departmental Council, where Jean Villeret lived, hailed in a statement the memory of an "exemplary man", "both by the battles he led in the service of France, and by his civic commitment to bring to life the values of the Republic and democracy, especially among the younger generations".
A book of interviews conducted between Jean Villeret and the journalist Julien Le Gros, entitled "Un jour, nos voix se tairont" (Alisio), was published in April. Jean Villeret evokes his career, but also notions such as the duty of remembrance, anti-fascism, or the values of the Resistance. According to CERD, there are now only three known Frenchmen who survived the Struthof camp.