Roger Lebranchu who survived almost two years in Nazi concentration camps and was the oldest person to carry the Olympic Torch in last year’s Paris Games relay has died aged 102, the French Rowing Federation announced.
Lebranchu was a member of the French rowing eight who finished fourth in the 1948 London Games.
He was also national eight champion of France twice, the first time in 1946 when both his brothers were in the same crew.
“It is a huge honour,” he said of carrying the torch. “I bring peace.”
He lit the cauldron during the torch relay as it passed through the famed monastery of Mont-Saint-Michel, in May, 2024.
‘See you later’
Lebranchu was arrested in 1943 as he tried to escape to North Africa and join General Charles de Gaulle’s Free French Army after refusing to go to Germany as a forced labourer.
“I did not want to go to Germany, I wanted to fight them,” he told Ouest France newspaper in September 2023.
He glimpsed his father as he was being herded towards a cattle wagon to be transported to Buchenwald Camp in Germany and despite efforts to prevent them addressing each other they were able to mouth: “See you later.”
His journey lasted three days, he told Ouest France. Half the people in his wagon died and the rest slaked their thirst by “licking the bolts on the doors”.
Along with several others, Lebranchu escaped from a ‘Death March’ in April 1945 and was picked up safely by the US Army.
His father honoured the promise of ‘see you later’ by greeting him at a Paris metro station when he returned to France shortly afterwards.
(with AFP)
Read more on RFI English
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