From his house on the heights of Limoges, Lucien Sage has a breathtaking view of the Saint-Étienne Cathedral. Born in the capital of Limousin in 1932, he has lived a thousand lives: a metalworker, bookstore owner, president of the Secours Populaire. At 94 years old, the Limougeaud now lives a peaceful retirement, punctuated by his involvement with the Friends of the Museum of the Resistance. Despite his age, Lucien Sage is still sharp, his memory is intact, and he recalls the Second World War very well. On May 8, 1945, he was 12 years old.
On that day, he was at school, in a school “near the Saint-Martial Bridge.” “Suddenly, the principal entered the classroom. He said to us: ‘Children, the war is over,'” recalls Lucien Sage, visibly moved. “He didn’t even have time to finish his sentence before the whole class stood up and started singing the Marseillaise. The poor old man cried, and so did I, almost.”
Memory of the harshness of war
Lucien Sage remembers the joy and jubilation in the streets of Limoges after the announcement of the end of the war. A joy overshadowed by the absence of the “youth of Limoges”: “They were all at the front. And sadly, many never returned. Or if they did, it was in coffins.”
The announcement of the German surrender nevertheless marked the end of a tough period for civilians, marked by food shortages. Lucien Sage has carefully kept his family’s ration cards in a folder. “We needed them until 1949. It was very tough, we were starving. Thankfully, some farmers from the area would come sell their vegetables in the city from time to time. But we didn’t know good things. We didn’t eat chocolate, we didn’t even know what it was. Meat, the same.”
A tenacious commitment
However, Lucien Sage claims to have had a carefree childhood, recalling playing football with his friends during the war. This period marked him deeply, to the point that as an adult, he became secretary to the politician Georges Guingouin, a resistor and mayor of Limoges after the war.
In Lucien’s library, most of the books deal with the Second World War. The old man calls himself a collector: one of his cupboards contains his military medals, earned during his service in the French colonial army.
