Hostage of Amirouche, Bearing Witness for Remembrance – 114 Days in the Kabyle Maquis, Algerian War

A young civilian who went to Algeria in 1958 as an instructor under the Algerian schooling plan, he returned after four months of captivity in an FLN camp, which he recounts in this book. Having volunteered for the aviation service from 1959 to 1962, and after training as a nurse in Clermont-Ferrand, he became a senior manager at a specialist educational establishment near Compiègne. A young schoolteacher in war-torn Algeria, René Rouby had no idea that the adventure he was about to experience in Grande Kabylie would make of him a "miracle survivor".

Indeed, abducted by a fellagha commando under the orders of the sinister and bloodthirsty "Colonel Amirouche", this 18-year-old from Lozère endured a true ordeal. In a sober and moving account, he bears witness to the suffering that his comrades and he underwent throughout those 114 days of captivity.

Without hatred or rancour, René Rouby makes of his account a duty of memory and truth for all those who lived through this tragic and painful period of our history, who endured it and cannot forget it. In this new edition he deepens his testimony for the sake of memory and remembrance, drawing in particular on four of his companions from whom he was able to gather new information. The testimony of one of the sons of Mira, the Kabyle chief and successor of Amirouche, brings a new dimension to the work and points toward a new chapter in relations with Algeria. The author remains sensitive to all that relates to Algeria.

The various debates that have arisen here and there concerning torture and abuse led him to bear witness, through his book and his numerous lectures — which he continues to give — to the suffering endured by men and women who were both victims and witnesses of the Algerian tragedy. Given the success of his first work, it would seem that his message of peace and forgiveness is being heard. To write and to tell not in order to judge, but to explain.