Living Through The Algerian War by Marie VIANA

I’m Jean, I was born in 1937, in Paris. My childhood was very hard both for myself and my two brothers and two sisters. My father as a policeman worked enormously to feed us and to bring us up. In the 50’s, my father was transferred to Chambéry. Leaving Paris had been one of the biggest disruptions of my life. Arriving in Savoy, I managed to get by very quickly, I became quickly independent. At fourteen years old, I became a pork butcher’s assistant in Annecy. I left my family so as not to have to do the journey every day from Chambéry to Annecy. I was put up at my employer’s home. I was exploited, I only ate scraps of food. I slept on a wooden plank. Conditions were very hard and very disagreeable. But my life became even more of a nightmare when I began my military service. At the age of nineteen, the age of innocence, of beautiful meetings. We knew that we would participate, that the war killed. But we only fully realized when we were on the battle ground. In 1956 I was nineteen years old and my military service began. I was sent to Algeria as my father had been before me. Leaving my mother, my brothers and my sisters was a heartbreaking experience. To find myself all alone in a truck surrounded by soldiers as young as me, to think that it was maybe the last time that I would ever see my family. I was very awkward young man and it was such a tough experience. Arriving in Algeria, we knew that we had to kill Fellagha, to look for enemies.

Each evening, when we slept, we had to divide roles, some did the lookout to watch the enemies arriving because often, we were attacked at night. Sleeping on the floor, under my mosquito net, I was suddenly woken up by the bark of my dog. My dog saved my skin because there was a Fellegha above my head with a dagger. He was ready to cut my throat. I had the fear of my life. But he ran away. It was very traumatic for me. The more days went by, the more difficult it was for me to stand the war both morally and physically.

We had the right to have leave for about fifteen days to pay a visit to our family. On the way to France, we had a break in Briançon. On one particular evening, to try to forget the terror of the war, we went to a dance. I had a splendid meeting, a beautiful woman with blue open wide eyes, with beautiful long hair which flew in the same way as her dress which made a perfect outline. I completely fell under her charm. Since this day, we swore that we would write to each other each day. And from my journey home, till the end of my military service, we wrote to each other every day.

But, in between time, my leave came to an end. Back to reality, I was travelling on the dry road in a Jeep in a convoy of military vehicles when thousands of missile were aimed at the French. I lost many friends during these ambushes. I saw them die before my eyes. It is a memory that I will never forget. At the end of my military service, I met my sweetheart Marie-Jeanne, we married in 1960. I started a family. I was the happiest father in the world, such an improvement in my life after my dreadful adventure in Algeria. It isn’t impossible to forget this war, it is part of me, I keep in my skin, my flesh to this day, the painful memory of this war.