Simone and Marie Alizon from Rennes to Auschwitz

In October 1941, Robert Alaterre, head of the Johnny network, had to retreat in a hurry to Rennes and found a new headquarters near the station at "the Little Arvor hotel where we don't really like the Krauts that much". The hotel was modest and run by the Alizon family, specifically two daughters, Marie, 20, and Simone (aka Poupette), 16. Marie quickly agreed to host and help members of the network. The arrests in Quimper in February 1942 were followed by a second round of arrests in Rennes the subsequent month. Marie Alizon was arrested on the 13th of March 1942, and Simone, the network's courier, on the 17th. Detained by the Gestapo, they were imprisoned, isolated, and separated at La Santé and then at Fresnes prisons. Eight months later, in October 1942, the two sisters were reunited in the Romainville fort internment camp. There, they were grouped with those who, ten weeks later, would form the so-called "31,000" convoy, a deportation convoy named after the registration numbers assigned on arrival at Auschwitz. More than half of the 230 deportees in this convoy were communists. Simone Alizon later explained in her memoirs: "We were surprised to find that very strong ideological ties united these women, and one could feel an unusual cohesion [...]. The atmosphere was strange, coming from accumulated misfortune and a powerful ideal. Many of these women were some of the brightest scientists and intellectuals, with an unshakeable faith in their ideal." Among them were Charlotte Delbo, Danièle Casanova, Marie-Claire Vogel (Vaillant-Couturier), Hélène Solomon. On the 24th of January 1943, the 230 women convoy was deported to Auschwitz. At the beginning of August, there were only 57 women left. Marie Alizon died of typhus in Birkenau on the 3rd of June 1943. Simone was transferred to Ravensbrück, Beendorf, then to Neuengamme where she was liberated on the 3rd of May 1945. Back in Rennes, she married Jean Le Roux, founder of the network. She was recognised as a second lieutenant in the France Combattante (Fighting France) and received the Légion d'honneur (Legion of Honour) in 1966. The return from deportation was difficult: "Auschwitz is always right", she recalls. Simone Alizon found refuge in poetry and writing. She died in July 2013.