The Resistance, the Bolivian and some deadly caterpillars
In a forest clearing halfway up a mountain, five granite figures stare into the distance and dream of freedom. During the Second World War, freedom lay on the south side of the Pyrenees, and that is why the statues face towards Spain. Perhaps ‘face’ is the wrong word because none of them has eyes and ears or mouth and nose. Their granite features are featureless.
Memorials to the dead
Somewhere between 40,000 and 52,000 war memorials are scattered across France, a tragic testament to the wars of the 20th century. The vast majority of these monuments are easy to find, being located in the centre of hamlets, villages, towns and cities. Memorials to the Resistance, on the other hand, are often hidden away in the depths of a forest or high up in the mountains, locations which are more in keeping with the clandestine nature of Resistance activities.
The Maquis de Croquié
The inscrutable granite figures above the village of Mercus in the department of Ariège marks the spot where, in 1943, a handful of men founded one of the first Resistance groups in this part of the Pyrenees – the Maquis de Croquié.
Most of the other Resistance memorials I have encountered are simple steles with brief inscriptions. The commune of Mercus-Garrabet was more ambitious. In 2003, it announced a competition to design a monumental work of art to commemorate the Maquis de Croquié.
I have passed this memorial several times while running up or down Mont Fourcat, and it is certainly memorable. Nearby, an information board tells the story of the members of the Resistance, but it says nothing about the intriguing work of art. When I passed it again earlier this week, I decided to identify the artist.
From the Andes to the Ariège
The winner of the competition 20 years ago was a sculptor called Ted Carrasco, born in Bolivia and heavily influenced by the pre-Columbian art of the Andes. His work can be found in public spaces all over the world, including Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Slovenia and South Korea. And that raises an obvious question: how did such a celebrated international artist even know about a sculptor competition in a remote Pyrenean village, let alone enter it and win the commission?
After a little more searching, I found the answer. A year before the competition, Carrasco had for some reason decided to set up a new home and workshop in the mountains on the other side of the Ariège valley. Although he couldn’t quite see Mercus or Croquié from his front door, this project would be like working from home.
Strength, eternity, resistance
Four years later, Carrasco’s monument was finished. The five statues are carved in granite from the Sidobre, an area 100 kilometres to the north-east which produces half of France’s granite and is home to the largest granite quarry in Europe. As for why the stone faces are blank, at the time of the monument’s inauguration in 2007, Ted Carrasco told a local reporter, ‘The granite symbolises strength, eternity, resistance…I didn’t give faces to the five silhouettes in order to underline the anonymous character of the fighters.’
Carved into the reinforced concrete base are two gold-painted inscriptions. One reads, ‘For those who did not live to see the day of victory’ and it is followed by a list of the dead. The second can be translated as: ‘For all those who fought here, members of the maquis, French and Spanish Resistance fighters. For all those who sheltered and helped escapees reach the Free Zone. For all those who, fleeing the barbarism of Nazi Germany and Vichy France, were guided from here to freedom.’
A peaceful but dangerous place
The sculpture cost 53,000 euros, and the people of Mercus-Garrabet did not want their monument to remain hidden and forgotten high in the mountains, so the municipality spent a further 143,000 euros on building an access road and creating a picnic area complete with benches, an orientation table and the information board I mentioned earlier. Take a drive up there yourself, admire the monument, remember the Resistance and contemplate the magnificent mountain landscapes.
In this peaceful setting, an unexpected danger lurks in the trees. The cocoons in the pines behind the statues are the nests of the pine processionary. If you see a long line of cute caterpillars crawling across the green grass, do not under any circumstances touch them. I know from personal experience that their hairs can cause extreme irritation, sometimes lasting for several weeks. For dogs they can be lethal.
