In memory of Rene Carmille and the Marco Polo Resistance Network, the number of people deported and murdered would have been higher. Rene Carmille thwarted much of Maurice Papon’s work. Carmille was torchered for two days before he died.
“No power in the world”, he exhorted them, “can stop you from remembering that you are the heirs of those who defended the country of France, from those who stood on the bridge of Bouvines...to those who fought at the Marne. Remember that!
“No power in the world can stop you from remembering that you are the heirs of the Cartesian thought, of the mysticism and the mathematics of Pascal, of the clarity of the writers of the 16th Century, and the perennial accomplishments of the 19th Century thinkers, all this - in France. Remember that!
“No power in the world can stop you from realizing that your institution has furnished the world with [great] thinkers...that freedom of thought has always existed...with rigor and tenacity. Remember that!
“No power in the world can stop you from knowing that the motto inscribed in gold letters on the pavilian: ‘For Country, For Knowledge, and For Glory,’ and the weighty heritage that constitutes the immense work of your ancestors, if for you a categorical imperative which must guide your path of conduct. Remember that!
“All this is written in your soul, and no one can control your soul, because your soul only belongs to God”.
- Rene Carmille
1943, Polytechnic School, Paris
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