Departures of note

Mélanie Berger-Volle was born into a Jewish working-class family in Austria and became politically engaged on the far left as a teenager against the Hitler regime. She fought Nazism in her native Austria, then in Belgium and France, distributing German-language tracts aimed at turning Reich soldiers. Arrested in January 1942, she endured 13 months of detention in Toulouse before being transferred to the Baumettes prison in Marseille, where she was beaten during interrogations. On 15 October 1943, members of her group and the French Resistance helped her escape from hospital in her nightgown, aided by a German soldier won over to the cause. After the war she married fellow resister Lucien Volle, and together they devoted themselves to memory work, explaining not just what they had done but why. She used the resistance names Anna and Nelly. In June 2024, at the age of 102, she carried the Olympic flame during the Paris Games, declaring she wanted to be a symbol for women who fought to do sport like men. Her motto was 'Résister, c'est essentiel. Mieux vaut vivre debout qu'à genoux.' A comic book titled 'Résistance' was created to spread her message to schoolchildren, with a sequel 'Liberté' planned for late 2027. She died at 105 in Saint-Étienne, where the prefect of the Loire hailed her as an emblematic figure of the Resistance and tireless keeper of memory.