MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: Yes.
M. DUBOST: You have just been decorated by General Legentilhomme at the
Invalides?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: Yes.
M. DUBOST: Were you arrested and deported? Will you please give your
testimony?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: I was arrested on 9 February 1942 by Petain’s
French police, who handed me over to the German authorities after 6
weeks. I arrived on 20 March at Santé prison in the German quarter. I
was questioned on 9 June 1942. At the end of my interrogation they
wanted me to sign a statement which was not consistent with what I had
said. I refused to sign it. The officer who had questioned me threatened
me; and when I told him that I was not afraid of death nor of being
shot, he said, “But we have at our disposal means for killing that are
far worse than merely shooting.” And the interpreter said to me, “You do
not know what you have just done. You are going to leave for a
concentration camp in Germany. One never comes back from there.”