Food for the Occupiers

Friday, September 22

The German troops, being pushed back towards the Rhine river by the Allied advance, were in desparate need of food and supplies. Cattle and hogs were requisitioned from the villages, but the process was far from orderly. The farmers of Etobon began to think they would have nothing left after they were liberated. The delivery of their precious cows was only the first blow the people of Etobon would suffer at the end of September, 1944. Jules Perret writes,

"Tomorrow, Etobon has to deliver fifty cows to Belfort.  Only that.  We discuss, we argue.  Finally, the mayor has found forty-two cows.  I’ll give my second heifer.  They wanted two right away, and they killed them near our smokehouse, leaving the hides right there.  I salted them and nailed tem up in the barn.  The tails, left on the hides, will make us a rich soup.  To spice up their menu, the boches stole an enormous pig from the mayor and one from Hélène Tournier. 

"Cossack patrols in a scrap with our FFI.  Young Voisin, from Frahier, was gravely wounded at the Vallettes."