Covering Their Tracks

Thursday, September 14

The men of Etobon had to dispose of the body of the German officer, and Jules Perret knew there might be serious consequences to the village if it was discovered. They had already heard of the murder of a child at Chenebier following the death of a German soldier there. The Etobonais knew the Germans could uncover their clandestine operations if they searched the parsonage: it served as the central kitchen for the camps of resistance, the British solders and German prisoners in the woods surrounding the village. The men had to work quickly before anyone came to investigate the Lieutenant’s whereabouts. Perret writes:

"I spent part of my morning arranging the Lieutenant’s grave so that it wouldn’t be spotted, adding dirt, putting dry leaves and branches on it.  Three militiamen, supposedly joining the resistance, killed a German at Chenebier.  To avenge themselves, the survivors set fire to Pierre Goux’s house, completely destroying it, and savagely killed little Gérard Pillat, a child of nine or ten years old.  What news for his prisoner father!

"Everything happens at once.  We are hurrying to remove everything from the parsonage that could tip someone off.  M. Marlier and I carry casseroles and mess kits full of food to the church, and hide them under the communion table.  Four veal heads, cooked, in a basket hidden in the brambles of the old cemetery.  At Isaac’s Mill, stoves and boilers, jars of preserves, wheels of Gruyere, sacks of sugar and coffee.  And they brought the wounded Germans to the same mill!  As for Besson, he is dead.  Mama dressed him in one of my suits and we brought him to the church. 

"The cannons are getting closer.  Hope is returning.  As soon as I was in bed, Fernand Goux came to tell me that, without electricity, he couldn’t make Besson’s coffin that night, so that we could bury him at first light.  We decided to take the body to the cemetery and put it in the Coulon family tomb, where he can wait.  11:30 p.m.  I’m home.  It went well.  Poor boy!  His brother is very upset."

Update on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 at 9:15AM by Katherine Douglass

As I compose this blog, 68 years after the end of World War II, I think about the times I led worship in the church in Etobon. Each time I stood at the altar, I thought about what had been hidden there in the autumn of 1944. There had been explosives and ammunition hidden in the steeple above my head, and pots full of soup under the altar in front of me. The drama and tragedy of those times still live in that sacred space.

The War Gets Closer

As Allied troops brought the war into the Franche-Comté, German troops became bolder about entering the village to commandeer food and supplies. By September 15, the people of Etobon could hear the Allied guns from the area of Lure and Vesoul, but the advance of the liberators seemed to have stopped. Instead of continuing to move toward the Rhine river, the progress of liberation was halted, and the villages of the Franche-Comté were still enduring occupation. Jules Perret's journal documents the daily toll that the occupiers took on Etobon:

Friday, September 15

Our men want to join the Americans, but they’re still so far away!  I went up to the Chateau summit this afternoon:  bomb explosions are coming from the plain of Lure.  In climbing up there, I found a comfortable hut in the bramble thicket at La Pianchotte, where four Hindus and the resister Henri Croissant, wounded in the foot, were still camped out.

In the afternoon, while I was at the forge, Germans came to take a heifer from Jules Jacquot’s place.  They paid – does Laval still spend 500 million daily? – killed it with one shot, and took it away in a car covered with leaves.

Besson’s coffin is ready, so we will bury him at nightfall, next to Tournier.  I’m too tired to go.

Saturday, September 16

A German car stopped at Etobon, giving the mayor an order to deliver 24 cows tomorrow to Belfort.  We met at the town hall, discussed, let loose some curses.  Indignant, Mayor Charles Suzette said, “You’re whining because they’re asking for cattle.  In a few days they might be taking men.  And when they shoot them, the mayor will be the first in line!” 

We finished by reaching an agreement.  One of my heifers will be in the group.  At Chenebier, the boches took 24 yesterday and want 12 today.  Are they taking everything before the Americans arrive?

Almost healed, Robert Chevalley, the one from Héricourt, is no longer in hiding.  He tries his first steps in the garden with the help of Charles Perret’s crutches.  René, sick and in bed, is staying at our house.

As for me, while the cannons thunder, I make schnapps with Marcel’s old still.

Sunday, September 17

Fifteen Cossacks stopped for half an hour at Jules Mignerey’s house.  They killed chickens and rabbits, then left. The Americans, after their lightening fast advance, are they running out of gas and ammunition? Two Germans came to our house and leveled their guns at Mama.  They said, “Telephone!” and then left.

The Threat in the Woods

Monday, September 18

Jules Perret writes:

"What a night!  All night long, trucks rolled by, coming from Chenebier, going towards Belverne.  Are they bringing troops from Alsace?  All day, they keep coming.  Several trucks are pulling big cannons.  And horse-drawn wagons, too.  They stable their horses everywhere.  We have four, Jacques three.  The men are polite enough and don’t take anything without asking.  We don’t recognize ourselves in this confusion.  Are we French?  Collaborators?  A soldier from Wurtemburg told us he had come up from Perpignan, that they were on the march for four weeks, fighting Americans and “terrorists.”

The stone that marks the death of two maquis on September 18, 1944, located in the woods between Etobon and Clairegoutte

"I went up to the Goutte Evotte to check on the shelters under the big rock.  What should we do with our prisoners?  Our Hindus?  The resistants of Horse’s Head, regrouped at Arthur’s Well, near Magny d’Anigon, have suffered a lot.  What a mess!"

It was a mess. German soldiers were now searching the woods. Two members of the resistance, Fabbro Libero and Jean-Paul St. Maurice, were killed in a gun battle this day on the road near La Tête de Cheval, one of the main rendez-vous points for the Etobon maquis and those they were hiding.

Tuesday, September 19

Our maquis, gone to the Valettes [a group of hamlets a few kilometers south of Etobon], play hide and seek with the Germans.  Sometimes we have an attic full while the Germans are in the kitchen asking for eggs.  To get his orders, Jacques sometimes has to go out among the Germans with a scythe and a rake.

M.P., who has his own reasons to move around had to pass near a German battery, and told an officer that he was a teacher and had a field nearby, which he wanted to get to without being questioned.  “Wait for me for two minutes.  I have to go to Belverne.  You can go with me.”  And off they went together, talking like old buddies, the German lieutenant and the lieutenant of the maquis! 

Captain Aubert, back in the woods at last, said to Jacques, “wait for orders.”

Some Germans are patrolling the forest where I’ve set up a supply tent with lots of interesting things in it.  Jacques said to me, “Are you sure there aren’t labels with our names on them on those sacks?”  Apparently, there are!  The sacks are marked.  I get chills thinking about it.  Carrying a scythe, I climb up there, pull off the labels, hide the fire buckets marked “Etobon,” all my tools, hatchet, billhook, pick, saw, Jacques and Lamboley’s FFI backpacks.  Ouf!  Now I’m back home.

Just when I was closing the doors to go to bed for the night, a boche came up to me and, in a whisper, asked “Where can I find a girl to sleep with?”  “You’ll have to look for yourself, buddy!”