This photo was taken on a lake near Munich in the 1940ies. The smallest of these four men was born in Corsica as René Valli (due to a mistake while copying the name it was changed into Vally).

Why is he on this photo? Well, in Germany workers were needed because most men were soldiers fighting in the war. So men from the occupied countries had to go to Germany to work there. This was also the case for René Vally who had moved from Corsica to Lorraine because of a bad story in Corsica.

So there he was, alone, among strangers, not speaking German, working at a brewery. Feeling quite lonely he decided to go back to France and back to his wife and his son. So he struggled all his way back from Munich to France. I always imagined him like Fernandel in the film "La vache et le prisonier". When he arrived in France, even before he could see his wife and his son, he was betrayed by French people to the German police. He was arrested and sent to Munich and then to Dachau, to the concentration camp near Dachau. 

This is not the end of the story as he was lucky enough to survive in the camp in spite of being hungry most of the time. He only weighed 48 kilograms when he was freed by US soldiers in 1945. He then stayed at a hospital for some time before he could return to France and see his 6 year-old son for the first time.

When I met him for the first time in the 1980ies, I found him an extremely gentle and nice man. He welcomed me, the German girl, in his house and said the most wonderful words I have ever heard:

"Children shouldn't inherit their parents' quarrels."

Christiane Eichel

An old photo from our small town Marhanets. 1960s....a new central square appeared in the town.

In Corsica, the people were also involved in the war: