Witnesses

The Germans brazenly committed the massacre in the middle of the village and allowed neighbors to watch from their windows. Several provided eyewitness reports. This report was later made by Philippe Kuntz, a tinsmith from nearby Buc. Although part of the initial roundup, he was spared and later returned to his home. His account follows.

September, 27, I went to the town hall with all of the men of Etobon.  I hadn’t taken part in the digging work of the previous days.  As soon as I went in, I was recognized by one of the accusing prisoners who named me as one of the former interpreters of the camp.  I was lined up among the suspects.  A junior officer of the Cossacks said, “That’s enough.”  There were 17 of us suspects.  Before leaving for Chenebier, the officer of the Cossacks had me say in French,  “You’re going to work on the fortifications at Héricourt.  It will only take two or three days.”  We left at the head of the detachment.

In the meeting room at Chenebier, the suspects were taken to one side.  A little later, two escaped prisoners appeared, re-equipped and armed.  I think they had come from Belfort with the Gestapo:  a lieutenant, an adjutant, a corporal and a soldier, all wearing the insignia (S.D.) on their sleeves.  The captain of the Cossacks was with them.  We were ordered to stand up, uncover our heads, and be silent.  Some of the men had their hands in their pockets, and were slapped for it by the lieutenant.  The ex-prisoners from Belfort went through our ranks and pointed out the men they pretended to recognize. 

As each designation was made, the officer took down the name and birth date of the victim.  They paid no attention to the age or the family situation … Just then, the lieutenant took me aside and said, “Why are you in the resistance?  Tell me the truth.”  “ I was brought in by force.  They forced me to present myself at the Etobon cemetery, September 9, or be shot.”  He asked if I knew some of the men and if I could name the leaders of the Etobon group.  I said I didn’t know any of the village men, because I was taken immediately to guard the prisoners.

The most persistent of the former prisoners (Karl Lade, no doubt) then called our comrade Georges Surleau into a smaller room and made him submit to interrogation, from which he emerged severely beaten.  Three others followed, whose names I don’t know, submitted to the same torture.  That’s when the other men, considered civilian prisoners, were led out, to be taken to Belfort.  (Of which seven would be shot ten days later at Banvillars.)

The lieutenant spoke a few words to the forty remaining men:  “You have made war against our soldiers.  You have killed some.  You’ve starved the prisoners.  You all deserve to die.  You will be shot.”

Immediately after, the adjutant made the first group of 10 to leave, and I heard the shots.

I was part of the second 10.  As I was leaving, the prisoner pointed to me and said, “this one was good to us.  He shouldn’t be shot.”  The officer pulled me aside and crossed out my name on his list.  I stayed in the meeting room until the executions were over.  The officers were also there.  They did not take part in the massacre.  

After the last shots were fired, the adjutant came back and saluted, saying, “Mission accomplished!” 

The lieutenant shook his hand.

They gave me a written order to present myself to Belfort to join the Todt organization.  They took me in a truck to the Commandant at Belfort.  There, I succeeded in sneaking away and got back to Buc in the evening.

Those Who Died

The list of those who died in the autumn of 1944 is very long. Most were murdered by machine gun fire in Chenebier. Others died fighting the Germans or in concentration camps. Brothers, fathers and sons died together, leaving whole families to grieve.

Here are the names of those Etobonais who died for France (forty shot, two dead in combat, seven by deportation):

Goux, Gilbert, 17 years old, student at the high school

Perret, Charles, 24 years old, and his brother:

Perret, Fernand, 19 years old, died in deportation

Perret, Jean, 20 years old, and his brother:

Perret, Georges, 17 years old

Perret, Pierre, 35 years old, father of 2 children

Perret, Jacques, 33 years old, father of 1 child

Perret, René, 28 years old and his brothers:

Perret, Maurice, 20 years old and

Perret, Paul, 18 years old

Bauer, Maurice, 20 years old

Goux, Fernand, 41 years old, father of 4 children and his two adoptive sons:

Schoenenberger, André 28 years old and

Boulay, Robert, 22 years old

Beaumont, Aimé, 21 years old

Nardin, Charles, 29 years old

Croissant, Jean, 22 years old and his brother:

Croissant, Roger, 19 years old

Pernon, Pierre, 20 years old, died returning from deportation

Nardin, Jean, 17 Years old, and his brothers:

Nardin, Pierre, 20 years old and

Nardin, Raymond, died in deportation

Goux, Julien, 20 years old

Goux, Jean, 20 years old

Goux, Robert, 35 years old

Surleau, Georges, 42 years old, and his adoptive son:

Large, André, 18 years old

Nardin, Marcel, 42 years old

Nardin, Charles, dit Suzette, 52 years old, mayor of Etobon

Mignerey, René, 44 years old, father of 2 children

Nardin, Albert, 40 years old

Pochard, Alfred, 58 years old, and his son:

Pochard, Samuel, 28 years old

Lamboley, Raymond, 25 years old

Demange, Louis, 44 years old, father of 5 children

Grasset, André, 20 years old

Prosper, Pierre, 32 years old

Goux, Pierre, 23 years old

Guémann, Paul, 43 years old, and his brother:

Guémann, Christ, 40 years old

Vuillequez, Pierre, 35 years old

Voisin, Raymond, 25 years old

Tournier, Jules, 44 years old, killed in combat

Quintin, Edgar, 18 years old, and his brother:

Quintin, René, 20 years old, both died in deportation

Cristen, Jacques, died in deportation

Nardin, Alfred, died of the consequences of his deportation

[Editor's note: Gustave Bouteiller's name is included on the plaque in Chenebier, but is not on this list from Jules Perret's journal, nor is he on the list provided by Charles Perret in Etobon 1943-1944]

I Dreamt of Jacques ...

The continued presence of their childrens' murderers caused unceasing pain to the Etobonais. Jules Perret identifies the guilty ones and their units even as he is forced to put up with them.

Monday, October 30

The chief of the Cossacks came to my house about some business of transporting wood in the forest. It was Blum, the ignoble and cruel captain who brutalized our children before handing them over to their executioners, who were taken from his own unit; this Blum is easy to identify because he’s missing the fingers on one hand.  I can’t walk from my bed to the living room, so Mama and Suzette received him.  A little while later, Suzette started crying, screaming, even, to me, “Papa!  We’ve endured everything!  When he saw some coffee on the table, this thug wanted us to give him a cup.  While he was drinking it, I saw his hand.  It had no fingers.  It was that monster!”  She was so enraged she couldn’t say more.  If she had had a gun, I think she would have killed him. 

The boche Ernst, who’s been staying here, has left.  Without a goodbye!  He can go to hell.  These last few days he spent his time looking for X’s grave.  Karl Lade must have told him that he was killed in a potato field, so that’s where he was looking.  If he only knew that I had hidden a picture of X in a hole in the wall!  Before he left, perhaps with the idea of pulling something out of me, he became revoltingly obsequious.  Monsieur Jules this, Monsieur Jules that:  “Rest yourself … would you like a cushion for your back? Etc., etc.”  The other boche, Henri, also exasperates me with his servility.

On all these abominable idiots, I note as many details as possible so that they can be found and punished:  this Ernst, like Vonalt, is from Regiment 406-75A.  Dr. Rauch is from Ambulance 622-44A.  The Cossacks, with their Blum, their lieutenant Kamerer, their adjutant Kartch and other crooks, are from the 15-201F.

As we await the rout, all the boches are extraordinarily active.  They do the impossible so that everything works as they wish, ceaselessly repairing their rolling stock, shaky, crumbling.  And things work, more or less.

I just had an interesting conversation with one of these boches, little, old, vain, always freshly shaved, holding his little head high, with his hair combed over his receding hairline.  He explained to me that Hitler is a good man, perfect, above all humane; that France was stupid for getting upset over such little details as Danzig, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland; that the armistice of 1940 was a masterpiece of generosity, after which the Germans had the right and the duty to shoot French people by the hundreds for being so ungrateful as not to submit.  Oh!  These French!  What horrors they perpetrated while they occupied Germany!  And the good little boche told me of a revolting beastliness:  In Dusseldorf, in 1920, the youth gave a party, during which an actor talked of those awful Poles. “You know what the French did?  They interrupted the play, and put the one who had spoken against the Poles in prison for 2 weeks.  As for the others, they yelled at them!  Yelled at them!”  In the fact of such cruelty, the orator lost his breath, yells in his turn against the resistance, these terrorists, these thugs, these assassins, then, at the end of his eloquence, stretches out on the sofa, near the stove, and goes to sleep.  What an incredible imbecile!

Last night, I dreamt of Jacques.  I saw him, I embraced him, I asked him if it was true.  He said yes, but it was unimportant and a good thing.  I said to him:  Son, come back often and see us ...

Return to the Killing Fields

As men from the neighoring villages dug a huge common grave next to Etobon's cemetery, the bodies of those shot in Chenebier were exhumed from the churchyard  to be identified. It was the most horrific of days. Jules Perret could not stand to be present as Jacques and the others were identified.

Friday, December 8

What weather, last night!  This morning, the diggers are soaked.  I tried to drive a truck full of boards and poles through the mud.  In this mess, I couldn’t move an inch.  Why do we have to have more of this weather!?

Alas, in the killing field of Banvillars, there are some of ours.  Louise recognized her husband Marcel Nardin and Marguerite Nardin her brother Albert.  And five gendarmes, taken with them – the adjutant Henry, Pierre LeBlanc, Pierre Bouteiller, Jean Millet and Pierre Savant Ros.  New sadness.  And worry, because all the corpses haven’t been identified.

Three o’clock.  I just came back from the cemetery.  What a job!  So much dirt!  The five meters left between the trenches is not enough, but we can’t start over.  We’ll put the monument at the end.  But the transverse trench is badly placed for four or five coffins.  It’s so hard to do the right thing.

Five o’clock.  Suzette and Aline come home from Chenebier.  What a wrenching scene!  No more illusions.  Jacques is dead, killed by a single bullet to the back of the head.  He’s not disfigured at all.  Only his forehead is wrinkled, as if he’s worried.  But so many are unrecognizable!  Christ Guémann was shot at least fifteen times.  Our niece Hélène recognized my brother-in-law and Samuel.  Alfred still seemed to be singing.

Charles’ Marguerite didn’t leave all day.  She washed them all.  They found Jacques’ wallet, his knife and his beret; but in his shirt pocket, where he and Aline, that same morning, had put a little change-purse with 1500 or 2000 francs and some Bible verses that I had also given to Jacques, there was nothing.  His pocket was unbuttoned.

We hear details about all of them.  We shiver as we listen.

A plaque marks the location of the mass grave in the churchyard at Chenebier. The bodies of the fallen now rest in Etobon.