How the "white clown" Marcel Marceau saved hundreds of children during WWII

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

French mime Marcel Marceau became famous for the image of Beep, a clown whose performances were both comedic and tragic. In them, the French saw their own life, with all its joys and sorrows. Everyone knows that. A much lesser known fact about Marcel Mangel (he changed his last name to Marceau after the German occupation of France in World War II) is that he was an active participant in the French Resistance.

Marceau himself came from a Jewish family and lived in Strasbourg, on the border between France and Germany. Marseille, who was 16 at the start of the war, was one of the first to witness all the horrors of the German invasion. Together with his family, Marseille was evacuated from Strasbourg, shortly before the Nazis took over the city. They headed south to Limoges, a commune in central France.

From that moment on, Marcel Mangel realized that he had to fight for his survival. After the French army surrendered, Marseille changed his last name to Marceau in honor of the French Revolutionary General François-Severin Marceau-Degravier.

Marceau in 1974

Together with his cousin Georges Loinger, he joined the Resistance, in whose ranks he remained until the end of the war, even though his father Charles was captured and sent to Auschwitz, where he died. His knowledge of English and German (in addition to his native French), as well as the acting talent shown by young Marcel at an early age, have come in handy during the many sabotage and reconnaissance missions carried out by the Resistance. Marcel managed to avoid arrest with the help of forged documents.

Marceau in 1962

As it became apparent in 1944 that the war was drawing to a close, the Nazis decided to "get rid" of the remaining Jewish population in France. The orphanage located west of Paris was home to several hundred Jewish children, whose evacuation became a top priority for the Resistance. Marcel was instructed to somehow get the children out of the orphanage, without catching the eye of the Nazi authorities, and bring them to Switzerland.

He changed into a Boy Scout and managed to convince the orphanage staff that he was taking the children on a tour organized by French scouts. Today, of course, no one will say whether the orphanage management believed him or agreed, because they knew that the children would be expected if they were not evacuated. And now it's worth for a second to imagine yourself in the place of Marseille and think about how to transport hundreds of children from an orphanage in Paris to the Swiss border … it was a real feat.

Advertising photo of Marcel Marceau

Since childhood, Marcel was fond of the works of Charlie Chaplin. In fact, Marceau's post-war mime career was heavily inspired by Chaplin's Little Tramp.

But back to the evacuation of the children. To begin with, Marcel needed to reassure the Jewish orphans so that they would not betray themselves when transported to the border. But how to make hundreds of children stay calm when there are invaders around every step, who can grab them. Here the talent of Marcel Marceau came in handy, who entertained the children with pantomime when they began to be capricious or panic.

Marceau with American President Jimmy Carter, Rosalyn Carter and Amy Carter, June 1977

George Loinger also later recalled how his cousin reassured the children and persuaded them to remain silent. After Marcel's death in 2007, he told the Jewish Telegraph Agency about this:

“The children loved Marcel and felt safe with him. He showed them the first scene right at the orphanage in order to interest the children and distract them from the surrounding realities. The kids were supposed to look like they were going home on vacation to the Swiss border, and Marcel really calmed them down to make them look carefree.”

Shortly thereafter, the Allies landed on the shores of Normandy, liberating France in the following months. Marcel and his cousin Georges joined the French Free Forces and launched an offensive against Berlin. Mime later described his greatest feat as a soldier when he, along with several other French soldiers, captured an entire German unit, as the talented actor managed to convince the Germans that his unit was the vanguard of a much larger French force. In fact, there were no reinforcements, but the Germans felt it was better to surrender than to face an entire French division in battle.

Marcel Marceau in 2004

This story later developed into a myth, which claimed that Marceau used pantomime to demonstrate to the Germans from a distance that a large French force was approaching, and this forced them to retreat. But this myth was refuted by Marceau and Loigner himself.

In fact, serving in the army prompted the young Marceau to devote himself to pantomime after the war. After being invited to speak to 3,000 US troops in Frankfurt just after the end of the war, Marceau commented: “I performed for GI, and two days later I was on the cover of Stars and Stripes.

Marceau's contribution to the French Resistance was never forgotten, and the pain of his father's death in Auschwitz became the cause of the sadness that forever settled in mime parodies. Marcel Marceau died in 2007, leaving behind a legacy that shaped the development of the art of pantomime, in which he was one of the pioneers.