When Hervé Le Tellier bought a home in La Paillette, a hamlet in rural southeastern France, he discovered a name carved into the outside wall (previously covered by a decorative plaque). The name, André Chaix, inspires Le Tellier to learn everything he can about who this person was. The fruits of that research became The Name of the Wall, a brief collection of facts, a bit of speculation, and a lot of reflection on resistance, fascism, and historical gaps. Adriana Hunter does an able job translating this meditative, interesting book.
André Chaix was barely past his twentieth birthday when he was killed in August 1944, along with five others, when his small unit of Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP, mostly Communist or Communist-leaning resistance fighters) ran into a panzer in the town of Grignan. Le Tellier was able to find some information about Chaix’s life: letters and photographs, the name of his fiancée, employment information. Chaix was one of thousands who joined up with the French Resistance to fight back against the Nazi occupiers. Historical documentation and some correspondence from Chaix reveal that a lot of what he was doing was waiting, at least until the Resistance and the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans got orders after the the Normandy landings to wage guerilla warfare against the German forces.
It’s hard not to try and place oneself in Chaix’s shoes. At such a young age, would I be courageous enough to take up arms against an overwhelming enemy? Would I die to keep others safe? Le Tellier doesn’t go quite as far as I do with my questions, but he does think about what he was like when he was the same age as Chaix. In the 1970s, France wasn’t occupied, though the far right was beginning to rise once again in the form of the Front national (later National Rally). Le Tellier had Communist leanings himself at Chaix’s age, too. Instead of wondering what he would’ve done in Chaix’s place, Le Tellier spends a lot time trying to recreate daily life in La Paillette. What movies might Chaix and his fiancée gone to see at the local cinema? What would Chaix have been reading? How much did he know about what was going on beyond his pocket of France?
Le Tellier relates what he can of Chaix’s life, generously sharing photographs of the smiling young man and the items in a box of Chaix’s belongings that he was given during his research. It was amazing that Le Tellier was able to find as much as he did, thanks to the efforts of other researchers and the relatives of Chaix and his fiancée Simone’s families. The Name on the Wall, I think, is a thoughtful monument to a man who was killed trying to liberate his country.
