Philip Graham has a fascinating look at French memoirist Jacques Lusseyran over on his blog. Lusseyran lost his sight when he was six, and subsequently cultivated awareness of his other senses. He lived a storied life and was essential to the French resistance during the Nazi occupation of Paris.
Jacques Lusseyran was born on September 19th, 1924, in Paris, France. He became totally blind in a school accident at the age of 8. He soon learned to adapt to being blind and maintained many close friendships, particularly with one boy named Jean. At a young age he became alarmed at the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany and decided to learn the German language so that he could listen to German radio broadcasts. By 1938, when Nazi Germany annexed Austria, he had accomplished this task. Germany invaded France in 1940. In the spring of 1941, at the age of 17, Lusseyran formed a Resistance group called the Volunteers of Liberty with 52 other boys. He was put in charge of recruitment. The group later merged with another Resistance group called Défense de la France. In July 1943 he organized and participated in a campaign to drop pro-resistance leaflets on trains, and claimed to carry tear gas canisters to stop people from interfering, though he never used them.
Another exemplar of spiritual joy is Jacques Lusseyran, who was a high school student in Paris at the time the German army occupied France in 1940. Although he had been totally blind since age eight as the result of an accident, Lusseyran, who was then sixteen, decided to organize his friends and other students into an underground group to resist the occupation. Within a year the group numbered some 600 members who produced and distributed an illegal underground newspaper despite the risk of imprisonment, torture or death if they were caught. Lusseyran describes the mood of both surrender and joy he experienced in the resistance movement:
Jacques Lusseyran was born on September 19th, 1924, in Paris, France. He became totally blind in a school accident at the age of 8. He soon learned to adapt to being blind and maintained many close friendships, particularly with one boy named Jean. At a young age he became alarmed at the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany and decided to learn the German language so that he could listen to German radio broadcasts. By 1938, when Nazi Germany annexed Austria, he had accomplished this task. Germany invaded France in 1940. In the spring of 1941, at the age of 17, Lusseyran formed a Resistance group called the Volunteers of Liberty with 52 other boys. He was put in charge of recruitment. The group later merged with another Resistance group called Défense de la France. In July 1943 he organized and participated in a campaign to drop pro-resistance leaflets on trains, and claimed to carry tear gas canisters to stop people from interfering, though he never used them.
