Learning My Way

Houses near the church in Chenebier

The week after the ceremony, I began to explore the villages of my parish. While my colleague, Jean-Jacques, had responsibility for the town of Héricourt and the villages immediately surrounding it, I oversaw the more distant ones. During my work in France, I’d often “faire le tour” of my territory, just to see what was going on. Had the snow been plowed in Chagey? Was there still road construction outside Champey? Had they finished the work on the village square in Couthenans? I’d drive from one village to the next, on the lookout for people and events.

That last week in September, after driving the short distance from Couthenans to Chagey, I drove out through the woods towards Chenebier. It was the first time I’d driving out there myself without following someone who knew the way.

I turned left off the main road towards the village of Chenebier, and then saw a sign that said, Rue d’Etobon, Etobon Street, on my left. I thought, that must be the way to Etobon and the church at Chenebier. I knew the church was on the top of the hill on the left, overlooking the main part of the sprawling village. I followed the Rue d’Etobon for a while, until I saw it was leading me away from the landmark steeple instead of closer to it.

I turned around and retraced my route, something I did a lot of in France. I got back to the main road and followed it through the twists and turns, hills and valleys of Chenebier, trying to keep the “arrow” of the steeple in view. I finally turned one last corner and was in front of the church. I pulled into the tiny parking area and got out. I had brought my camera along, already feeling the need to document this story, the massacre, the mystery.

Welcome the Stranger

Slowly, in small bands, the escaped prisoners approached the village, looking for food, shelter and clothes that would help them hide their identity. Farmers hid them in their barns, their sheds, and in isolated spots like Isaac's Mill. Housewives searched attics for old coats, hats and sweaters, and poured up the contents of their soup pots to take to the men. At sundown, farmers or their wives would slip out of their houses and carry the food and clothing to the escapees. But they all knew they could not stay hidden from the occupiers forever.

A plan to get them out of Etobon, out of France and into safety had to be devised. Jules Perret and others who were hiding the men sought counsel from Pastor Marlier, their spiritual and ethical leader. Together, they came up with a plan to take the men through the woods in small groups and deliver them to the resistance in Chagey, the village on the other side of the forest. From there, they would be passed from village to village until they reached the Swiss frontier near Delle and Beaucourt. But the plan was risky: how could they keep the POWs from being recognized?

The Quiet Franche-Comté

During the “quiet years” of the occupation of France by Germany, village life was much like it had been in the previous century. Rationing of petroleum and food meant that rural families provided much of what they needed themselves. Horses and oxen provided most of the transportation and pulled plows and farm wagons. Blacksmiths were a necessary part of rural life. Only a few 20^th century inventions touched the villages, most notably the radio and the telephone.  In keeping with four hundred years of tradition, the villages of the northern Franche-Comté were Protestant, specifically Lutheran. Most had only one church building, at the center of the village, and the pastor was a public figure of equal stature with the mayor. As the mayor was the political leader, the pastor was the moral and spiritual leader of the community.

Pastor Marlier had been serving the Etobon-Chenebier parish for several years, and he and his wife were beginning a family: son Michel was born in February 1944. The youth and the older Etobonais all admired their Pastor. He was well-educated, a natural leader, and could even speak and write a little English. He baptized the infants, confirmed the young, visited the sick and buried the dead. He made sure the parish kept functioning even during the occupation. Mme. Marlier worked with the women to organize parish dinners and festivals. Her neighbors Jeanne Perret and Lucie Goux, who lived up the road, could always be counted on to bring a tarte aux fruits or a gateau de fête to any parish gathering. Most of the adults in Etobon had grown up in the shadow of the church steeple. The village looked to Pastor and Mme. Marlier to help them through those difficult years.

The Gathering Storm

By the early summer of 1944, dozens of escaped Indian POWs had passed through Etobon. Each had been fed and sheltered. When the villagers had surplus clothes, they shared them with their guests. The men had escorted the Indians to Chagey and from there they traveled in stages to the Swiss border. But as the summer wore on, groups began to return, telling how they had been stopped, or fought skirmishes with German patrols. The Germans had learned of the unprecedented numbers of escapees crossing the frontier and had closed it. The former POWs had to go back, deeper into the Franche-Comté to find sanctuary.

At Etobon, Pastor Marlier and the leaders of the maquis decided to set up a series of camps in the woods for the men. They would provide tools to build shelters and lean-tos and the village families would deliver food each day to an agreed-upon site. The men would at least be kept alive and away from the occupiers.

The idea of these exotic-looking men wandering the woods of eastern France always made me shake my head. How did they escape without being spotted? And what tales did they tell when they returned home to India? As I got to know my parishioners, I found how much the events of 1944 lived in them and their homes. One afternoon, drinking tea in Claudine’s salon in Chenebier, she told me she remembered these funny Indian men in the woods when she was a child. She said, “One got sick and died – right there where you’re sitting.” Then she pulled out an old magazine with pictures of soldiers dressed in rags, turbans in place, straggling out of the woods between Etobon and Chenebier at the end of the war. I understood then why the Indian government had placed two bronze plaques at the cemetery in Etobon, grieving with the villages of Etobon and Chenebier.  The plaque in French provided by the government of India. An identical plaque in Hindi is on the opposite wall of the cemetery at Etobon

The Plaque

The plaque, one of two given by the government of India, commemorates the connection forged between the Indian soldiers and the villagers of Etobon and Chenebier. The second plaque is in Hindi. Translated from the French, the plaque reads:

"This plaque is given in gratitude by India to the citizens of Etobon and Chenebier, for the aid that they gave to Indian prisoners of war who escaped from the enemy in 1944-45, during the German occupation of France.

India grieves for the sons of these two villages who gave their lives for the common cause."

Update on Saturday, October 20, 2012 at 12:06PM by Katherine Douglass

The plaque in Hindi, located across from the French version.