From the last letter written by Huynh Khuong An, a 29-year old teacher and French resistance fighter, to his wife Germaine Barton, before being excuted by the Nazis on October 22 1941 at Chateaubriand, along with 26 others in retaliation for the death Karl Hotz.
Be courageous, ma chérie. It is no doubt the last time that I write you. Today, I will have lived.
We are temporarily locked in an uninhabited hut, about twenty comrades, ready to die with courage and dignity.
You will not be ashamed of me. You will need a lot of courage to live—more than I need to die.
But you absolutely must live, because there is our darling, our little one, whom you will kiss very hard when you see him again.
You must now live with my memory, with our happy memories, of the 5 years of happiness we lived together.
Goodbye, my darling,
My kisses.
My final caresses.To your parents, my affectionate kisses.