The Funeral

After the coffins arrived at the cemetery, it was time for the funeral. So much grief, so many tears ... Jules Perret's account is heart-wrenching:

Here we all are in the church.  The ones we are mourning came here to pray, to sing, to hear the message of the Gospel.  They used to sit there, there.  I see them again, I hear their voices rise at the psalm and the hymns.  Now they’re side by side again, hands joined, eyes closed, on the bottom of the immense grave where we just placed them …  Is it true?…  My Jacques!  My eyes are so full of tears that I can’t see anyone, and yet the church is full because people have come from near and far to surround us with sympathy.

A voice came to us from the high pulpit, the voice of M. Lovy, who had been our pastor for eight years, who knew, loved, drew into a brotherly circle our lost ones.  His voice trembles, he chokes on his words:

“Have pity on me, Lord, because I am without strength.  Heal me. Lord, for my bones shake …  From out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, hear my voice!  O that your ears would be attentive to my pleas … My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen wait for the morning … If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not raised … If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”  Finally, this text:  “I say to you, who are my friends:  do not fear those who kill the body and who, after that, can do no more.”

No message, no sermon:  the cry of a wounded heart bending over crushed hearts, of a heart that knows that the cream of our parish has been mowed down, so many youth of whom the Lord said, “You are the light of the world …” to the other hearts to show that they know that the souls of believers never die.

We listen to these words that console us and tear us apart…  “Those who fell at the foot of the protestant church in Chenebier, their gazes fixed on the beloved heights of Etobon, left in a way that is reserved for very few martyrs, because they died – knowing them, I can affirm it – in the peace of their Lord.  O that that same peace would be yours, in the midst of your tears, dear friends of Etobon.”

In the midst of your tears … they flow, unstoppable.  Ah!  That God would be with each of us, that he would take us by the hand!  There is only Him to console us, to heal us …

I could see no more, I could hear no more, not even my own sobs, or mama’s or Suzette’s or anyone’s.  I could only repeat to myself, “Lord, hold us in your mighty hand …”

How we got outside, in the wind, the snow, the cold, I have no idea.

As soon as I could, I went back to the cemetery to photograph the coffins of Charles and René, at the bottom of the pit and bid them the supreme Adieu.  More tears!  The diggers started their work again.  And now all are hidden for this life …  awaiting the great Reunion.

The day is over.  We have supper.  And yes, we still have to eat!  All together, we talk again about them, always about them.

A Brave Friend

The dead were buried, but the suffering continued. Jarko, a Serbian soldier who had been hidden at Etobon, was finally able to return home. He had fought alongside the maquis and become a well-known figure in Etobon. Pierre Goux, shot in Bavilliers, returned to his home in a coffin. He would be buried near his companions.

Sunday, December 10

Jarko has left, never to return, to hide his tears.  Armed with a document of safe passage, he will go to Paris, from where he’ll return to Serbia.  A brave friend has left us … This Sunday seems so long, without their presence.  My heart feels like a stone in my chest.

Monday, December 11

Misery!  A car brought yet another coffin.  I help carry this poor Pierre Goux into the sacristy, where, not long ago, we had lain Raymond Besson.  Since then, only the dead.  I stayed alone by the coffin for a long time and thought about many things.

Tuesday, December 12

We’re burying Pierre Goux near his comrades.  It’s almost more sad than the other day, when we had to organize, transport the dead, unroll the ropes.  Today, its’ definitive.  Each one cries near their own dead.  Oh, that my sister would have pity on me in front of these two graves!  And Suzette and Aline, and everyone.  I’ve never seen so many people weeping together.  The outsiders have left.  Now it’s only us, faced with our dead.  And there are more to come.  Even for us the war isn’t over yet:  every day the mines create more victims.  The mayor of Brevilliers, a teacher from Héricourt, a soldier burned to cinders in his tank, blown up by these diabolical things.  At Chenebier, little Roland Hénisse, 10 years old, killed by a grenade.  Others at Ronchamp … And the list is not complete. And the concentrations camps are still at work. [Monday, May 14, 1945, we learned of the death, in the camps, in atrocious conditions, of Fernand and Raymond Nardin, then Jacques Christen, the brothers Edgar and René Quintin, children of 17 and 19 years old, Raoul Clainchard, three days after having been freed.  Since December 12, more deaths, everywhere, by mines and grenades.]

Searching for a Former POW - James Melvin Nichols

The ripples from a stone dropped in the water keep expanding...I recently arranged a visit to Etobon for a British historian, who sent me a picture of a military bracelet from an American soldier. The bracelet is in the possession of one of the Etobon families who helped hide escaped POWs (see the Etobon Project journal for more background). The bracelet had his name and serial number engraved plainly on its central link. A bit of research uncovered the fact that James Melvin Nichols enlisted in Texas, that he was captured in the North Africa/Italy theater, imprisoned (probably) in Epinal, France by the Germans, escaped and was hidden at Etobon, then was recaptured by the Germans and imprisoned in Germany and returned to the American military at the end of World War II.

What happened to James Melvin Nichols after that? Did he return to Texas? Marry and have children? Are there children or grandchildren searching for information about him? If so, I'm posting this photo in the hope that they will find it.