How Were They Hidden?

The woods around Etobon are old, and they are deep. The men of the village, hunters and foresters, know the woods well. There are ancient tracks that link the villages, and isolated shelters, caves and clearings known only to these men. The tracks and trails date at least to Roman times: there is a Roman road paved with blocks of stone that cuts through the woods between Clairegoutte and Etobon. When the escaped prisoners became too numerous to hide in the barns and attics of the village, the men decided they’d be safer in camps in the woods, in locations unknown to the German occupiers.

Part of the Roman road near Tête de ChevalThey began with a few small camps, at the Leaping Spring and The Horse's Head, two spots far into the woods. The men of Etobon provided tools, axes, shovels, hammers, and as much equipment as they could spare. They brought old pots for cooking and helped the soldiers build lean-to shelters. The soldiers expressed their gratitude and pleasure at having a safe and secret camp of their own.

Their planned escape to Switzerland had not gone well. After the first escapees had managed to cross the frontier into the neutral country, the Germans tightened their grip on accessible border crossings. Many of the Indian soldiers were turned back, and some were killed. A few weeks after they were escorted onto the next group of maquis by the men of Etobon, small groups had returned to the village with horrifying tales. The Etobonais knew they must keep these men safe until the end of the war.



The Pastor and the Resistance

In this traditionally Lutheran region of France, each village has its church, or temple, at its heart. Since the protestant reformation in Europe in the 16^th century, the people of the region around Montbéliard have been Lutheran. Their pastors have always been community leaders. Pastor Marlier served in Etobon during the occupation of France by the Germans, and he provided self-sacrificing leadership to the village.

When the escaped prisoners of war began to arrive in Etobon, it was Pastor Marlier whose advice the villagers sought. He drew maps of the region, and helped as an interpreter with the little English he knew. Marlier and his wife cared for the injured and sick in their own home, offering shelter, hot water for bathing and shaving, and food.

As the Etobon maquis become more involved in guerilla activities, Marlier allowed them to store their machine guns and explosives in the steeple of the church. The parsonage was used as the central kitchen for the camps in the woods where the escaped prisoners were hidden. When it looked as though the Germans would search the parsonage, Marlier and a few others hid the huge cooking pots, full of food, under the altar in the church.

When the men of Etobon were arrested, Marlier was marched with them to Chenebier. He survived the massacre of September 27, but was deported to Buchenwald. Somehow, he lived through that ordeal, and was able to return to his family at Etobon after the war. His son, Michel, born in February 1944, has recently retired as a Lutheran pastor in the region.



Dr. Zeigler and the Secret Hospital

Resistance to the German forces of occupation was a violent and dangerous project. In the larger cities many resistance limited themselves to the publication of pamphlets and posters urging boycotts and other non-violent tactics. In the countryside, the maquis, although poorly armed, used whatever means they could to make life difficult for their occupiers and any collaborators.

Even in Héricourt and its surrounding villages, the maquis used violence against Germans and collaborators. And, as a result, wounded maquis needed to be cared for without arousing the suspicion of the occupiers. Dr. Zeigler, a physician in Héricourt, M. Huckel, a pharmacist, and Elisabeth Matthieu, a young nurse, set up a system of providing care to those who could not be taken to the hospital. Using the parish hall on the street level of the parsonage at Héricourt, Dr. Zeigler would care for maquis injured by gunfire or explosions.

In some cases, it was too dangerous to keep the wounded in town, even in the relative safety of the parsonage. In the case of Robert Chevalley, for example, some wounded maquis had to be moved to outlying villages to protect them from potential informants. Chevalley had been wounded in a botched assassination attempt on a collaborator. Initially taken to the hospital in Héricourt, and guarded by German soldiers, he was “kidnapped” by fellow maquis, hidden in an empty grave in the town cemetery until nightfall, and then transported by wagon to Pastor Marlier’s parsonage in Etobon. There, Zeigler and Huckel could visit him, while Mme. Marlier provided nursing care. Chevalley, although having to suffer an amputation, survived and remained at Etobon until the liberation.



Sabotage

The World War II generation of my parishioners seemed the most enthusiastic about their new American pastor. Sadly, the youth were most familiar with recent American military adventures, especially the war in Iraq. Their view of America and Americans was much more skeptical, even hostile. But the elders remembered when America had rescued them. “If it weren’t for the Americans, we’d all be Germans,” was one’s opinion. Born in 1944, the last year of the occupation of France, he grew up in the villages of the parish, and knew the privations of post-war Europe.

There were many of the World War II generation who were still involved in parish life. Louis Guerity, the cabinetmaker at Luze, ill, stooped and in the last months of his life, was one of them. He was a deeply intelligent man, very well read. To visit his home was to enter a world of antique tools, rusted equipment, books and dishes and old newspapers. He pulled out his Bible once to ask me about a verse, and it was underlined and highlighted, the pages stained and dog-eared. It was the most well used, well-thumbed Bible I think I’ve ever seen. The dark dining room was full of old newspapers, boxes and imposing furniture. Louis had made and carved the furniture with his own hands, and it was exquisite. The dining table and sideboard were fashioned in dark wood, with flowers carved in relief. Louis himself was dying of cancer and, almost bent double by an arthritic spine. His eyes were bright, though, and his wit and intelligence shone out above his pain.

Louis told me of his days as a young man in the village of Luze.  Snowy fields near the village of Luze

Apprenticed to a cabinetmaker, he had excelled at his work. Although he had been of the age to be taken by the Germans, he had escaped deportation to the work camps, while others from Luze had been taken. Louis remembered what he called “meetings” that he attended with other young men during the war. He’d smile and say a few of them would get together for a meeting and, what a coincidence, the electrical lines to Couthenans would be destroyed. To hear him speak of those meetings began to open my eyes to how deeply involved my parishioners had been in defying the Germans while they waited for liberation.

The fields around Luze on a s

Chez Bonhotal

The Bonhotal family and their descendants live on the edge of the woods on the outskirts of Chenebier. A few kilometers' walk takes you deep into the forest, or to the village of Etobon. The Bonhotals had contact with the Indian soldiers' camps in the woods, and their children remember playing with those soldiers in the last months of 1944.

Daya Ram's headstone in the Chenebier cemeteryOne of the Indian soldiers, Daya Ram, a sergeant in an artillery brigade, had been ill since arriving at Etobon. Jules Perret reports that one of the soldiers was ill, and that he was given aspirin and tea to comfort him. Later, after living for months in the woods, Daya Ram's tuberculosis came to its crisis. The other soldiers brought him to the Bonhotal's home, where the family cared for him in their great room. With no medicines available, Daya Ram died there on October 15, 1944. Emile Bonhotal knew that they would all be in jeopardy if the Germans discovered his body. That night, Bonhotal and some helpers loaded Ram's body on a wagon and covered it with potato sacks. They moved Ram's body to the woods, where they buried it until it could be exhumed and buried in the Protestant cemetery in Chenebier. Ram's body rests there still.

Update on Sunday, September 29, 2013 at 11:18AM by Katherine Douglass

Another picture of Daya Ram's grave in the Chenebier cemetery