Cannon Fire and Desparation

Saturday, September 23

The occupying troops were becoming more and more desparate, killing the Etobonais' cows where they stood to provide meat. Didn't the people of Etobon sense how in danger they were? Perhaps they did, but could do nothing to avoid what was coming. Jules Perret writes:

"Woke up to cannon fire.  The battery at Bouloie is firing furiously.  We’re getting the cattle ready to transport.  It’s worse than the fair …  The mayor was at Belfort, so in my role of deputy, I received those who were asking for favors.  Here come four boches looking for one cow.  Even though I told them that 50 were on the road to Belfort, they argued.  One with glasses said to me, “Those won’t give us any meat.  Show me the house where there are some cows left.”  What a chore!  I took them to Guemann’s, Paul and Marthe started crying.  But what could I do?  The boches took, weighed, paid for – with Vichy money – and killed a pretty heifer, right then and there.  One of them dug a hole to bury the entrails.

"The Cossacks have attacked again and are trying to surround our maquis.  They had to abandon Voisin, wounded, where he lay.  Who will take care of him? (Emile Voisin was found dead in an attic, where, despite his broken leg and abdominal wound, he was able to crawl into for shelter.)

"Midnight.  Jacques, back from Belfort, and I killed our pig to keep it safe from looters.  We knocked it out and killed it near the rabbit cages, in the little shed , then dragged it through the orchard back to the stable."

It's Begun ...

Monday, September 25

The bombardment of Etobon has begun. Allied artillery have been firing from a distance, but now shells have begun falling in and around the village. Jules Perret anticipates that the village will be drawn into the fighting. He can't anticipate what will happen in three days.

"At two in the morning, American shells, meowing, started in the direction of Belverne.  And the boches cannons barked.  You’d think you were in Verdun in 1916.

"Announcement.  All the men from 18 to 50 years old must go to dig trenches in Belverne in the rain and the cannon fire.  Following the advice of M.P., the guerillas absent themselves.

"So, we’ll be in the middle of the coming battle.  We have to prepare ourselves, too.

"I buried a crock of lard in grandmother’s basement, our money and five jars of roasted meat in ours, and Suzette’s trousseau, put in crates, in grandmother’s storeroom; and here and there a demijohn of schnapps, 50 liters of Tunisian wine, my writings …

"Eleven o’clock.  It’s begun!  One shell above the village, another in it.  Some boches take refuge in our house and ask, very politely, for coffee and a little glass of schnapps.  They want us to “trink” with them.  A big non-com with glasses looked at my picture in uniform that hangs on the wall:  “You, sir, you are also a non-com,” and he asks for an ashtray, “not to make dirty.”  Too polite!

"The shells continue to rain down on the outskirts of the village.  Meanwhile, Mama is salting and cutting the pork, which we’ll put in barrels and bury in the cellar."

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."

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."