André and Magda Trocmé, City of Refuge Podcast

André and Magda Trocmé in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in 1938. (Trocmé family collection)

Refugees are fleeing, hate groups are rising, the far-right is winning elections around the world. Those who want to do something about it are going to need a model for resistance. And there may be none better than the story of a small French community that rescued around 5,000 refugees from the Nazis.

Waging Non-Violence created this 10-part podcast series about a little-known WWII rescue story that shows what happens when ordinary people won’t ignore the horrors that surround them. André Trocmé, a Protestant Minister and his wife Magda were the remarkable couple who led an entire town to follow in the way of love.

André Trocmé (back row, center) with Jewish and non-Jewish refugee children sheltered in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon during WWII. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/Peter Feigl)

The Jews were there around us. They came at our door, asked for protection.

We could have delivered them in the hands of the police. We were told that it wouldn’t be wrong, that they would be taken care of by people in the East of Europe. It was all a lie. We tried to save them. We didn’t take arms. Around us, the French Resistance movement would take arms… We simply hid these poor people in our homes, shared their fate — some of us have gone very far, also under persecution some of us have perished.

Rev. André Trocmé