Hope y’all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This week, we’re exploring the interesting Chapter 9: Téléphone. Let’s go!
What is “Telephone”?
If you are unfamiliar with the game of Telephone, this will help you understand why I chose the name for this chapter. If you are an expert, feel free to skip a bit ahead!
I’m going to keep this brief – here we go! So, the game of telephone is very common amongst children, but in general, is a very fun game to play. The object of the game is to tell a singular word or phrase amongst a group of people, with the last person having to repeat the thing they heard. Oftentimes, the word or phrase can get misunderstood and the final phrase or word that is announced at the end may not be what was originally said.
This game is supossively from Chinese culture, originally called “Chinese whispers” to represent that. It is said to have been the method of communication of the workers building the Great Wall of China. While it may have happened, there is no clear origen of the game.
So, the child’s game probably developed from real life skills. Think about it – you have to send along a message to people in jobs, school, and other situation. Sometimes it’s
How does this pertain to The Resistance?
Well, one major problem for the Resistance was their mail being intercepted and read by the Gestapo. Mail was no longer private, so new ingenious way of communication were being used.
Secret codes, for one, were used heavily. The Resistance made sure to change up these codes often as to not get caught. In addition to the secret codes, word of mouth was heavily relied upon. Giving specific people certain secrets to carry was used to restrict the amount of information actually on paper that could get confiscated.
However, while it might seem like a very smart plan, there were always rats within the Resistance. No, not like actual animals, but people who gave up information. Such as Rene Hardy.
(Next up is a call back to a past post – it summarizes everything very well!)
Event: Betrayal of Jean Moulin (and several other Resistance Members)
UNSPECIFIED – JANUARY 08: Lydie Bastien, mistress of Rene Hardy, she was at the origin of treachery which was fatal to Jean Moulin, here at trial of Rene Hardy may 5, 1950 (Photo by Apic/Getty Images) 
- When: June 12th, 1943
- Where: Suburb of Lyon, France
- What: As mentioned in my previous post, Jean Moulin was a key resistance member who was betrayed by Rene Hardy, leading to his arrest by German authorities. They were sent to Montluc Prision in Lyon, where they were detained and tortured by Klaus Barbie (the head of the Gestapo). Eventually, Jean Moulin was sent to Germany, but died on the way there.
- Why did I include it: When thinking about the name of the chapter, I needed some way to intertwine the resistance movement to the childhood game of telephone. I spent some time researching the history of the resistance and all of its members. By pure chance, I stumbled upon Jean Moulin and his story, and by the grace of God, it fit right into what I wanted to write!
Thinking about the above…
So, following this massive betrayal, we find our main characters second guessing who they can trust. Namely a certain German Kapitän.
Now, Dimitri isn’t totally out of line. How much can they really trust Albrecht? Dimitri has based most of his trust on knowing someone and really understanding who they are. He knows Annabelle, so he’s not too worried about her alliances. He is however worried about the hold Albrecht may have over her (especially her heart).
One final note as well: World War 1 and 2 were both times of widespread prejudice against Germans (and other central/axis powers). In the countries they were fighting against, it was very hard to admit heritage to a country that the rest of the world was fighting, especially with all the wrong doings the Nazis were committing. Dimitri expressed his views on the topic, showing how easily he’d fallen into that mindset. The rest of France (at least those not collaborating with the Nazis) held very much of the same views.
I think that covers pretty much everything I wanted to talk about this week. This chapter has a very straightforward meaning to it and I merely flushed out some details. I hope you enjoyed it.
Next week, it’s time for “Nothing” – one of my favorite/hardest chapters to write.
Comment below your reactions and maybe something you might want to see in a future post!
Till next time!
L.A. 🙂
P.S. : Why don’t you write down some of your Thanksgiving memories and share them below? I might even write down one of mine!