One Lanzmann Memory

Found in a review of Claude Lanzmann’s autobiography/reminisce, LE LIÈVRE DE PATAGONIE Mémoires:

...During the war, while still at the lycée in Clermont-Ferrand, he became a member of the young Communists and a courier for deliveries of arms to the Resistance. He and a Jewish schoolgirl, Hélène Hoffnung – both carrying identity cards stamped “JUIF” – collected suitcases at the railway station and carried them past German patrols. When the latter looked curious, the two would become enlaced in a parody of passion. They returned covered with flagrant evidence of passion, “alors que rien de sexuel n’exista entre nous”. Later, as a full-blown Résistant in the Haute-Loire, Claude was sent to collect a trailer loaded with arms, escorted by an older man called Biegelmann who was armed with a pistol. When they were stopped by a sole member of the Milice, Biegelmann lost his nerve. As they were being led away, Lanzmann’s elderly father (a shadowy figure most of the time) happened to ride up on a bicycle and shot the milicien with his Colt 11.43. Biegelmann has never been forgiven.