80th anniversary of the Liberation. “Someone brought a record player in front of the church and everyone started singing and dancing”

Le château de Latour-sur-Sorgues abrita des résistants.

Alors que la libération de Millau date du 22 août 1944, à Latour sur Sorgue, Fondamente, Saint-Maurice de Sorgue, Cornus et Le Clapier, ils étaient enfants et se souviennent de ces jours d'août 1944 qui virent,enfin, l'étau de la guerre se desserrer. 

It was in the Château de Latour sur Sorgue, where her father was a farmer, that Jeannette Sobie, 11 years old in August 1944, learned that the war was over. "We found out about it from the TSF. She also said that De Gaulle had taken power" she confided. "Someone ;rsquo;one brought a record player to the front of the church and everyone started singing and dancing…" &nbsp ;Jeannette remembers that the resistance fighters from Freychet's maquis hid in the mountain opposite and came to get supplies from her house.

Jeanette Sobie remembers the announcement of the Liberation, heard on the radio and shared by the entire village.
In Saint-Maurice-de-Sorgues, Robert Bessière was 14 years old. With his brother Rémy, they were plowing in a field with oxen when a neighbor told them the news. At the Canabols farm where they lived, people took out a cross of Lorraine and some even a sickle and a hammer! The resistance fighters based here met on the square in Saint-Maurice with the inhabitants of the village. Although very young, he remembers that a few days before, he had seen a parachute drop on the Plo d'Amoure. But his strongest memory remains the arrest of a resistance fighter by the militia. He managed to escape through the toilet window. Robert explains : "They shot him but he managed to escape". 

In Saint-Maurice-de-Sorgues, Robert remembers the arrest of a resistance fighter by the militia, who managed to escape!
At Le Clapier, Noël Privat was 10 years old. His parents, farmers, lived in the village castle. He especially remembers the big party and the dance that followed in the schoolyard. "Pascal René de l’Arbussel came with his clarinet, Robert Abbal de Saint-André with his accordion and his brother a jas (drum), it was a party all night long!"

At Le Clapier, Noël Privat remembers the musicians and a party that lasted all night…
At Fondamente, Gérard Ayot, 7 years old, then at the local council, remembers above all that all the inhabitants had hung a French flag in the windows. As for Jean-Louis Caumes, he was not yet born! But he was told in the family that his father Marcel, the emblematic baker of the village who never stopped kneading, made the bread rounds with a wood-fired gasifier. On the Guilhaumard plateau, he supplied a group of resistance fighters: “A coloured marker in the trees told him whether there was danger or not… “ And to add: “The Germans often came to requisition bags of flour!”

In Fondamente, Gérard Ayot remembers the flags on the windows.
In Cornus, Hélène Sagnes (8 years old) and Colette Coste (7 years old) recount the same moving memory. Maximilien Viala, known as Max, was a wine merchant on the quay. He brought out a whole barrel to celebrate the event. “Everyone was singing, everyone was kissing… “ they conclude.

In Cornus, Colette Coste remembers the joy of the inhabitants, and the wine shared to celebrate the Liberation.

“You don't say anything otherwise the Germans will kill dad” 

But all these witnesses, even very young ones, remember the climate of distrust towards those around them that reigned during the hostilities. Everyone was wary of their neighbour, especially those who made deals with the resistance. Jeannette still shudders when she tells us that her mother used to tell her: “At least you don't tell anyone, or the Germans will kill Dad!” and she admits that“today, at over 80, her words still resonate in my head”
They also evoke what must be called the witch hunt that followed. The denunciations of militiamen and collaborators, but also the settling of scores for personal grudges prior to the conflict!
Also mentioned are those from the front, who returned only a few months later, as well as the prisoners. “There were five of them at Clapier, , said Noël, who only returned in November“. They have, of course, an emotional thought for those, too many alas, who unfortunately fell on the field of honor, as it is written on the monuments of the villages.

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