Trocme, Andre (1901-1971)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1971 Jul 1 p. 4

Birth date: 1901

text of obituary:

Tribute to Well-Known Reformed Pastor

Pioneer Peacemaker of France By Peter J. Dyck MCC director for Europe/North Africa

THE WELL-KNOWN French Protestant peace leader, Andre Trocme, died at the age of 70 after an illness of 10 months. His funeral was held June 8 in Geneva, Switzerland. Marlin Miller, representative of the Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities and Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section, and friend of Trocme, attended the funeral. The simple service focused on crucifixion and suffering, "The Face of God on Earth," a meditation prepared by Trocme himself.

Some Mennonites in North America will remember Andre Trocme from his several lecture tours in the 1950s when he spoke in numerous churches and colleges. Some will remember him from the film in which he told (in delightful and anecdotal style) some of his experiences during World War II. Others will remember him from his writings, notably the book, "The Politics of Repentance," published in 1953. His later books, "Jesus and the Non-Violent Revolution," and a book for children were probably never translated into the English language. Some remember Andre from personal contact in meetings, especially EIRENE (International Christian Service for Peace).

MANY JEWS will remember with gratitude this courageous Reformed pastor for saving their lives during the time of the Third Reich. Again and again he and his friends provided hiding and safety for Jews sought by the German Gestapo. To hear him tell about these hunted people and how French Christians took them in, often at great risk to their own lives, was an unforgettable experience. If these Jews were to speak today they would tell of their weeks and months of fear and suspense, but also of the love and care of Andre and his Christian friends as they moved them from one hiding place to another, often just steps ahead of the police.

In her book, "The Rebel Passion," Vera Brittain tells that after the war in 1948, a former Jewish refugee asked Andre to convey his thanks to the peasant woman who had hidden him. He also met one of the military police, who arrested members of the Maquis, and who later had become a pacifist and member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). Says Vern Brittain: "Of these experiences Andre Trocme subsequently said that although, at a given moment, a man may be unable to see the way out of his predicament, in terms of later events the methods of God became clear."

I REMEMBER Andre Trocme as the warm-hearted, energetic inspirer of youth. He was an enthusiast. Andre believed with all his heart that God was still at work in the world, as in the days when he walked this earth in the person of His incarnate son Jesus Christ.

In 1959, Paxmen invited him to their annual Peace Conference in Austria. He spoke on Luke 4:16-19, pointing out that the hearers at Nazareth were indignant when the heard Jesus say that He had come to preach the Good News to the poor, deliverance to captives, set free the oppressed and announce the acceptable year of the Lord. But Jesus would not modify or retract. Ultimately this led him to the cross.

I am sure many a Paxman long remembered big Father Trocme's lucid interpretation of that passage and how he said to them, paraphrasing Deut. 15:1, "I am the Lord who liberated you therefore you must liberate one another."

ANDRE often spoke about the strong social reform program contained in Jesus' ministry along with His concern to save individual souls. He told MCC workers how wise the Old Testament injunctions were. For example, it was mandatory to cancel all debts and redistribute land holdings every 50 years in the year of Jubilee, so that the rich would not get richer and the poor poorer.

Modern nations would do well to learn that lesson, he said, rather than building the Suez Canal, as the British did, and then contract payments for 98 years. That was too long a time, Andre said. It wasn't just. Surely the last generation of Englishmen would receive profit for work they had never done. Is it any wonder it didn't work and we now live with a Suez Canal tragedy?

ONCE WE WERE at an EIRENE meeting, and as happened so often, it went into Sunday. After breakfast and before we turned to our full agendas, Andre took the Bible in his big hands and in that almost perfect English with just enough accent to know that he was a Frenchman, he spoke on "The freedom of the Sons in Their Father's House." That whole day we worked and planned, budgeted and prayed that through our efforts and the efforts of the EIRENE team in Morocco, the Muslim people of that poor, medieval country might also come to know in a greater measure the freedom that only the sons have in their Father's house.

Andre Trocme was for his Reformed Church the Orie Miller of the Mennonites and the Bob Ziegler of the Church of the Brethren. He was a pioneer and a dreamer. EIRENE, launched in 1957 by MCC, BSC and the IFOR (International Fellowship of Reconciliation), would never have been what it is if it had not been for his dreams and vision for a better Morocco. For many years he was secretary of the French FOR and later the Swiss FOR.

AFTER WORLD WAR II, he had another vision which became when he founded College Cevenal at le Chambon in France, a center for systemic teaching and training in peace-making. Later the school was also used, as it is still, for language study and training of volunteers going for service to Africa.

Andre was born in 1901 to a Huguenot family in San Quentin, one of the first French towns to be invaded by the Germans in 1914. When he was 16, the idea of pacifism came to him through a German officer staying in his parents' home, who said in effect that he was a CO and was determined never to kill. Andre was not ready for the nonresistant position yet, but the seed was planted. He allowed himself to be drafted into the army. But the struggle with his conscience became so acute that during an expedition to Morocco to deal with a local rebellion, he abandoned his rifle and went unarmed into the desert. Later he prepared for the ministry, training in France and at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he met his future wife, Magda. They had four children.

The Mennonite obituary: 1971 Jul 6 p. 447