The Grave-Diggers

The Etobonais were now free to bury their dead. Work on a common burial site had begun, and neighbors from Belverne, Echavanne and Chenebier had come to dig the graves.

Saturday, December 2

The cannons are still firing near Thann, where the Germans are surrounded.

Jarko wants to leave tomorrow, but I ask him to wait until Jacques comes home in his coffin.  Oh, I’m so frightened!  I don’t want to see him, I push that vision away … And I remember that thug Vonalt, sitting there, near the stove, I hear his barking.  And that Blum, who stuck his muzzle into one of our coffee cups!  Oh, Jean, when you know the truth, you who send a card to your brother right when he was being killed!  His anguish went to your heart …  Since the liberation we are even more sad, sad that we can no longer be joyous.

Sunday, December 3

The able-bodied men of Belverne, Chenebier, Echavanne, come to dig two long common graves and a shorter one, going across, for our poor children, because we have no one to do this work.  We will build a monument in the center.  Pastor Lovy will preside at the service.

I went to see the diggers – it’s a beehive of activity.

M. Pernol has left for Chenebier to direct the painful work of exhumation.  The trucks have brought the coffins and twelve prisoners to help.  I’d prefer to pass on those guys.

Today they are opening the killing ground of the 27 victims at Banvillars.  M.P. went there yesterday.  He fears he’ll find more men of our village.  At Chenebier, they’ve already identified Gilbert and Henri Croissant.

Tomorrow I’ll ask the families to send sheets and pillows for the last sleep of our children.  And that they provide information on the clothing they were wearing to aid in identification.  What a trial!  No, I won’t go there.  I can’t.   I want to keep the memory of the handsome face of my son.  As for his soul, I know it’s not there.

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.

The Coffins

The day had come to bring the martyrs home. Places in the common grave had been chosen, and the men's remains were brought from Chenebier by truck. One was still unidentified: that grim task fell to his mother.

Saturday, December 9

At daybreak, I limp across the village.  The trenches aren’t finished, the labels not yet done.  They won’t be finished until the moment we leave for Chenebier.  We have to satisfy everyone.  After Gilbert Goux will be the Perrets.  There are eight of them.  Jacques will be between Pierre and René.  Uncle Alfred and his Samuel, with all the older men, are across from the Perrets.  The two Bauer sons across from their father, the two sons of Louis Nardin and the two sons of Guémann in the transverse trench.  One half meter between coffins, except for brothers, who rest side by side.

When I come back to the house to get ready, I find two pastors, M. Poincenot and M. Netillard, who are waiting for me with their car.  That was fortunate, because I couldn’t walk all the way to Chenebier.  We’ll have to leave the car by the cemetery, because the bridge was blown up.  We pass over wooden planks.  We’re among the first to arrive at the school.  What a sight!  In front of us, in two rows, all these coffins, and these names, these names …

We step forward, Jeanne and I, we search.  In the second row, on the left, the Perrets.  In front of them, in the first row, I read:  Alfred Pochard, Samuel Pochard.  A little further to the left:  Jacques, René, Pierre, all the others.  What sadness!  It’s very cold.  And there, in front of us, our children, our children … Poor little Philippe, you look here and there without understanding that it’s your papa who is in front of you …

Bouquets of flowers arrive from everywhere, covering the coffins.  Rosettes, palms, tricolored ribbons.  FFI from Belfort, from Fougerolles.  It’s so cold!  The speeches are so long!  Please, not so many words, so many patriotic frills.  My eyes can’t leave the factory where they experienced such cruel moments.  The snow starts to fall, mixed with rain.  Gusts of wind.  We’re transfixed, we feel nothing.

This roll call is mournful.  “Perret, Jacques”  Lieutenant Pernol’s voice responds:  “Shot by the Germans.”  Thirty-nine times.

Is it over?  No.  A truck brings three more coffins from Banvillars where our own are laid out:  Marcel and Albert Nardin, Pierre Prosper.

Coming back in the car, we arrive at the cemetery a little before the trucks.  The weather is still terrible.  How can I write of what happened?  Men of Belverne, Chenebier and Echavanne, a few from Etobon, take the coffins, carry them, and line them up on the ground while the snow stings their faces.  The whole field is covered with coffins.  It’s snowing so hard that the names are covered, and we aren’t sure we’re crying in front of our own children.

Among all these coffins, there in one of an unknown.  M.P. opens it and asks several people to come forward.  This unknown holds his handkerchief in front of his face, in his right hand, as if to hide from the approach of death.  Berthe Croissant approaches.  Suddenly, a cry, so frightening, as if she thought he were still alive:  “It’s Roger! … My son, my son …”  Next to him, Albert Nardin clasps his hands, as if he were praying.  Of the group of four houses around the Cornée, there are eight dead.

We couldn’t stand any more, so we went back to the house for a hot drink and went out again when we heard our beautiful bells begin to ring.  Their voices pierce our hearts.

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.]