It's Not a Good Sign

Saturday, September 25, continued ...

The bombardment of Etobon continues, as does the rain. Mme. Picard, from Clairegoutte, told me how it poured rain nonstop during these last days of September, 1944. As the Etobonais are forced to provide shelter for German/Cossack soldiers and their horses, Jules Perret and his family can only watch and wait. He writes:

"Whoever might read these lines one day might wonder how I can take such precise notes.  Here’s how I do it:  I write a summary, often in patois, of what happens to us, on little squares of paper, well numbered, which I put in my wallet.  Then, when I have a moment, I bring out the notes and slip them into little bottles that I bury under the feeding trough in the stable. 

"We have five of the Cossacks’ horses.  To one of the cavalrymen, who is from Kouban, I said, “No go back Kouban.  Stalin hate Cossacks, kaput Cossacks.  Why Russky deutsch soldier?”  He says to me, “Cossacks not bolsheviks, not communists.”  That’s how we talk to each other!

"These Cossacks, even though many of them speak German, are really Russians.  Excessively polite.  They wear big red astrakhan hats.  The two that are staying here are 42 and 44 years old.  They are big, handsome men.  One has a son who’s an officer in the Russian army.  And he’s a boche soldier!  Philippe is always in his arms.  He kisses him and puts him astride their little horses - lively, but gentle as lambs.  When you do a favor for Siriés, the older of the two, he takes both your hands and weeps.  But these Cossacks are demons when they’re drunk!

"A hail of shells in the woods.  The boches set fire to Isaac’s Mill to drive out the “terrorists.”  Machine gun fire can be heard all around.  I’m writing these lines at the skylight in Jacques’ attic, where I can see without being seen. 

"Going back to the Cossacks, there is one very small one, a real runt, Sicilian, with a dark face.  How did he get in with this nice troop?   (We didn’t imagine, seeing this runty kid in front of the house, that two days later he would kill my son and thirty-eight of his comrades!)

"At my sister’s place, four Cossacks sleep in the room that’s over the basement.  One has his bed over the trap door over our pig in a barrel.

"Near evening, the cannon shuts up.  A missed offensive.  What bad luck!

"Eleven o’clock.  The cannon fire starts up again, very near, maybe a tank advancing from Lyoffans against la Pissotte?  Oh, I wish they’d come quickly!

"Without having to ask, our Cossacks brought their doctor to look at Suzette’s arm, swollen from an abscess.  He changed the bandage.  And polite!  We’ve never seen anyone so amiable.  It’s not a good sign.

"We go to bed partially dressed, the window open so that we can follow what’s going on.  It’s still raining.  “Pow, pow” everywhere!  We get stuck in the mud up to our ankles every time we go out to see what’s happening. 

"Four o’clock in the morning.  Jeanne, my wife, scolds me for sleeping like a log while the cannons are so loud.  The house is shaking from them."

A Guard at the Mayor's House

Tuesday, September 26

Etobon was under siege, by bombardments and the occupation of the village by mercenary Cossack troops. The fear in Jules’ writings comes through clearly:

"The bombardment continues non-stop.  It’s raining non-stop, too.  The other Cossacks are not as reasonable as our two.  René, relapsed in his illness and at his parents’ home again, tells us that, last evening, their Cossacks called the four brothers 'terrorists.'  Elsewhere, they shot at Gilbert Nardin and hit him with a rifle butt.  It’s a good thing it’s forbidden to give them schnapps.  There’s plenty for them to buy.  Drunks and thieves.  They’ll steal anything!  (Note of July, 1945:  Fredy, back from Germany, tells me that the Cossacks who had sold out to the Germans were all massacred by the Russians.  Where he was, they shot hundreds and tanks were driven over those who were still moaning.  I worry for my old Siriès.)

"What are they doing?  This evening, all the Cossack horses were saddled and there’s a guard in front of the mayor’s house.

"It’s raining and raining and raining.  Shells, too.  Never, during the other war, was I at such a party.

"At the forge, Jacques is shoeing as much as me, and more, especially horses.  I taught him how to sabotage them honestly.  The nails hold, but not for long.

"Some Cossacks asked Kuntz for schnapps.  He refused: 'Deutsch comrades drank it all.' 'Deutsch soldiers not correct.  Cossacks correct.'  They said it.  And yesterday, that same Kunst killed the yellow dog that had been prowling around Etobon for several days, killing chickens.  Good riddance.  A little before nightfall, a drunken Cossack fired several rounds at Gilbert Nardin and Jean Goux, without hitting them."

8 a.m., September 27, 1944

The events of September 27, 1944 are best told in the words of Jules Perret.

Wednesday, September 27, 1944

"At eight o’clock, the crier called all the men from 16 to 60 years old to the school.  Should I go?  I wanted to talk it over with Jacques, but he was tending the animals.  So I went over to the school with Old Man Besson.  I said to him, “Why are you going?  You’re not from here.”  So he went home.  In the classroom, I sat down between the gendarme Savant Ross and my brother-in-law.  And there were Jacques and René, sitting a little farther away.  Then there were the Germans.  With them was someone dressed as an aviator, bareheaded, in sabots.  He was pale and muddy.  Standing in front of us with a demonic smile, he pointed with his stick at some of the guerillas.  “Who is this character?” asked my brother-in-law.  “Gunther Ulrich, one of our escaped prisoners,” Ross answered.  The men from the lower village, who got word a little later, started showing up.

"We look at each other.  We talk.  We say,  “They’re going to take us to dig anti-tank trenches at Héricourt.”  With my bad knee, I’m not at all interested in going.  I want to talk to Jacques, but he is staring at the curtain in front of the stage, where you can read the words, “Peace, Fraternity.”  I get up, pace back and forth, then slip through a door that a guard had just walked away from, go down into the basement of the girls’ school, go through the laundry and come out behind the boys’ school, just a few steps from my house.  But I still have to cross the road in front of four Cossack guards.  I go right up to them and say, “Comrade Cossack Kouban?”  “Ja, ja, Kouban.  You know Kouban?”  “Yes, know Kouban.”  “You Kouban?”  Enchanted, they speak some Russian and let me pass.

"Suzette is in the kitchen.  I tell her they’re sending all the men to Héricourt, and that I pulled myself out.  “You did the right thing.  But they’re searching all the houses.  Take your scythe and go hide in Tisserand’s hut by the pond.”  It’s good advice.  More Cossacks, in the orchard.  I shake a plum tree.  Gut!  And I go on.  Behind grandmother’s house, Suzette meets me with a cape.  A little farther on, more Cossacks, Jacques’.  Guten morgen, Cossacks!  I point to the rain:  “Nix gut!  Krieg nix gut.  Kreig fertig.  Kouban!”  It’s all the German I know.  We hear some shelling far away.  A Cossack says, “Boom!  Boom!  Pap kaput!”  I go back and sit down on my cape, behind a bush, not far from the lieutenant’s grave.

"And here’s what I thought:  “Where is M. Boigeol’s officer’s jacket that Jacques asked for the other day?  He hasn’t returned it.  What if they find it?”  I wanted to go back home or back to the school.  I had only taken a few steps, when here comes my sister.  She tells me they’re taking the men to Héricourt, and they have to have food and clothing for several days, and congratulates me for escaping this chore.  I told her about Boigeol’s jacket.  I find out it’s under a pile of hay near our outhouse.  I put it in a safer place.  And I go back to the field where Suzette will come looking for me around noon."

The Round-Up

All the men from 16 to 60 were ordered by the Germans to assemble in the village school on the morning of September 27. Jules Perret joined them, but slipped out and hid. His memoir continues:

"In the village, people are worried, especially for the seventeen men set apart as “suspects.”   What’s in store for them?  Do they have any idea?  The Guemann brothers gave their sister all the money they had on them.  “We won’t be needing this.”  Charles called out several times to his daughter Denise:  “Kiss me once more.  You’ll never see me again.”  And H. Croissant, thinking of his fiancée, wrote with the point of a nail on the classroom wall where the “suspects” were locked up, “Goodbye, Germaine, my angel, H.C.”  and he drew a heart next to the words.

In all, they rounded up 75 men.  We don’t know why, but the commanding officer sent eight back.  Several didn’t show up, claiming illness.  M. Pernol hid in the steeple.  Marcel Goux also hid.  He crouched behind the woodpile that’s squeezed into his telephone room and stayed there until evening.  Before he took off, he heard Jacques and René, coming back from the toilets, saying “No, there’s no way …”  Without a doubt, they were talking about escaping.  They must have seen all the Cossack guards.

Sixty-seven men left, including our Pastor – who will be deported {to Buchenwald} – surrounded by the Cossacks.  Mama cries on the church steps.  When she gives her son a leather overcoat and a flask of schnapps, he says to her, “Why such a long face?  We’re going to dig trenches.  Don’t be so sad!”  “Goodbye, my little Philippe!  Be a good boy!”  He left confident, his face pink.  To René, who was wearing sabots, Suzanne gave some shoes.  Jus as the column was moving off, shells started falling around the village.

Without a doubt, if the Americans advance, the Germans will take our men to Germany.  They’re talking about evacuating us.  We decide to sleep in Remillet’s cellar.  I lock all our doors."

Etobon, September 28

The day after the men were marched out of the village, those who remained in Etobon knew nothing of their fate. Were they in Héricourt digging trenches? In Belfort, boarding a train as forced workers for Germany? The Germans continued to shell the village and people were afraid to leave their cellars. Jules Perret ventured to his own home for a short visit, then had to take shelter from the artillery shells.

Thursday, September 28

"There are a lot of us in Remillet’s cellar, all of us ill at ease.  It’s too hot.  [We think about our dear ones.  No little voice says to us “They’re all in the cemetery at Chenebier.”]

"All night long, the shelling continues.  Near daybreak I go to see our house.  It’s still standing … I hear snoring coming from the kitchen.  I opened the door.  My flashlight reveals eight Germans sleeping on the floor.  And I had locked all the doors and there’s no sign of a break-in.  Stepping over the eight bodies, I go through to the barn and find an enormous truck … A little later I come back with Jeanne.  Nobody there.  They could have gone to sleep in the beds, but they didn’t.  They cooked potatoes in the casserole and took one spoonful of lard, only one, for the pot, which wasn’t damaged.  They took a few grapes, ate a few dried plums, but left the telephone box, full of money.  In the cellar, they only took a few potatoes and didn’t touch the schnapps or the bottles.  They were good ones, then. 

"I take Victor the colt his bucket of skim milk out to his “chalet.”  A shell fell in my rows of apple trees in the Courbe au Prêtre.  Just broken branches left!  Why do people destroy everything when we could all live so happily?!

"The shells continued to whine, so we go back to Remillet’s cellar.  Those good folks have prepared a wonderful supper!  Hopefully a boche won’t come in and yell, “Get out!”

"We go from hope to despair.  One moment, the noise is so loud that we think our deliverance has arrived.  A few hours after, nothing.  Our hearts are tired.  We keep busy as best we can.  I’ll go see my sister, sad about the departure of her Alfred and Samuel.  I pour some water on the pig, in the cellar, so he can take a mud bath.

Finally some news of our unlucky ones.  They aren’t in Héricourt, like they said, but at Belfort, staying in the barracks of the GMR.  They’re working at Essert.  Louise Chevillot’s daughter saw them."