Rumors

Friday, September 29, the shells and rain were still falling on Etobon. Almost surely, the bombardment had two purposes: to continue the punishment of the Etobonais and to keep them from finding out what happened a few kilometers away in Chenebier. Rumors began to circulate, though, from German soldiers and neighbors. Jules Perret's journal continues:

"The shells are still hammering the soil of Etobon.  Two boches, a big blond and a dark one, stopped, seeing Suzette and Aline in front of the house:

“'Can you tell us where our comrade is buried, the one who was killed in this village on the 13^th?'

“'Nobody knows.  Women don’t get mixed up in these things.'

“'You think so?  There are female terrorists here, too.'

“'Talk to the men.'

The blond boche snickered. 

“"Men?  There aren’t any.'

“'Pretty much.  They took them to the trenches.'

“'They shot them yesterday at Chenebier.  Go see for yourselves!'

"Suzette shrugged her shoulders at this despicable lie.  After a few more questions, the women concluded that these two were Karl Lade, the prisoner taken on the 13^th, and one of those taken prisoner at my sister’s house, called Schott.

"This whole thing perplexes us.  We also heard that these boches have threatened to burn the village unless the body of Officer X was handed over.  Panic has begun to set in.  Some are leaving.  We thought about going to Chenebier, to Aline’s parents’, but the major in charge of the infirmary said, 'Why leave?  You won’t find anything,' and we calmed down.

"On my way from Remillet’s cellar to my house, I found two little boches, who were eighteen years old at the most.  For a little milk – what the colt didn’t want – they put two hundred-franc notes on the table.  'Soldiers clean, correct …'  I’m ready to take anything from the Germans that they could use against us in the war, but money is something else.  But they wouldn’t take it back.  And they gave me 100 more francs for a room.

"Three others were walking around my wagon, trying to take off a wheel.  I intervened.  Then I fed a little iron to my forge.  The one who took it from me had a Bible in his pocket.  He said to me, 'Protestant!'  But he still would have stolen part of my wagon.

"At Chenebier, the German captain is haranguing the villagers.  He told them Germany was in flames, that his mother and wife had been killed by a bomb, but that the people of Chenebier had nothing to fear if they behaved and didn’t act like those people of Etobon, all of them terrorists.  He added, “Despite that, I saved the village from complete destruction.”  I wonder what that meant.

"Ambulances pass by with the wounded."

The Truth

Saturday, September 30

Another night spent in Remillet’s cellar.  Mama winces each time a shell falls.  Suzette seems not even to hear them.  But they’re falling anyway.  The village is still standing, but the area all around us is showered with them. 

The boches want a horse.  They find Joker at Guemann’s and pay 40,000 francs for him.

The road past the cemetery to ChenebierToday, leaving Guemann’s house, I saw Mme. Bauer crying, then a group of people wringing their hands.  “They shot them!”  I couldn’t believe it and said nothing at home.  But, a little after dinner, Suzette, Aline, Mama and my sister rushed into the kitchen and threw themselves on me.  Oh!  What a scene of desolation!  My pen trembles, but I have to write about it.  Aline sobbed, “Papa, Papa, they’ve killed my Jacques, they’ve killed your child.”  And my poor sister, “Oh Jules, I’ve lost my Alfred, I’ve lost my Samuel … they’ve killed them!”  As for Suzette – they killed René, her fiancé, too – she sat down at the other end of the table, without speaking, without crying, locking her suffering inside.  And poor Mama – she kept repeating, “I was right to cry when he left, my brave Jacques, so confident …”  Only little Philippe didn’t understand.  I felt as if I was dreaming.  As soon as I could, I left.  Alas!  It was too true.  And to think that for three days we had lived so close to the catastrophe without knowing anything about it.  I wandered here and there.  What desolation everywhere!  At Charles Perret’s, they lost three:  René, Maurice, and Paul, just a kid … Coming back, I had to sit down for a moment, in the middle of the village.  Two American airplanes flew over the German battery in the Pré Camus, to adjust the fire of the American cannons.  I said to myself, “What are these Americans waiting for, to blow up these Germans last of all?”  I was overcome with sadness.  And then guess what happened.  The sound of a shell being launched, then the sound of it exploding over the Camus battery, the screams of the wounded, the sound of the ambulances.  What joy it is to recount that!  Alas, it won’t bring back our sons …

What a night!  It was a wake for our children.  Every moment was filled with the sound of weeping.  And the noise of the cannons blending with the sobs.

Massacre

By October 1, the families remaining in Etobon learned the fate of their men. Jules Perret writes:

Sunday, October 1

As soon as we woke up, we wondered if it was all just a nightmare.  We simply could not believe this tragedy.  And still … Somber Sunday, torn up by the shelling.  My sister went to Chenebier.  A hard pilgrimage.  She brought back horrific details.

They locked them in the factory.  Several were beaten, the mayor slapped.  It was Karl Lade, one of our escaped prisoners, who chose the twenty-three victims to add to the seventeen suspects, because they wanted forty from Etobon, no matter how they were selected.  The order was given by Colonel Vonalt, Major Bachmayer and Dr. Rudy Rauch of Frédéric-Fontaine, where these assassins were from.  Lade had stopped at 37, but the commanding officer had sent him back to choose three more from among the captives.  Forty!  They had to have forty!  And he chose Robert Goux, my brother-in-law Alfred Pochard and his son Samuel.  The list finally complete, they made the 27 non-condemned leave.  Two horse-drawn wagons were ready, and they were taken off in the direction of Belfort.  (Of those, ten days later, at Banvillars, they killed three more of ours, A. Nardin, M. Nardin, P. Goux and four of the gendarmes taken from Etobon.)

The wagons gone, the officer told the others they would be shot.  What were the last thoughts of these poor men?  To see themselves butchered like animals in a slaughterhouse!  And so it began.  The villagers saw it all from their windows.  Jacques and his uncle Alfred embraced each other.  They went to their deaths in groups of ten.  Mayor Charles Suzette went first, his cap in his hand.  René was second.  It was the Cossack devil Pietro-Pilot, the Sicilian runt, who asked to be the executioner. 

From one window, Manuel Abry’s wife said to Maurice Bauer, her nephew, “Oh, you too, Maurice!”  He responded, “Of course.”  She saw her other nephew, René Bauer pass by, too.  The Italian monster shot them with a machine gun, and an SS used a rifle.  At his last moment, Maurice knelt down on his brother’s body.  One group sang the Marseillaise, so loudly that they were heard all the way to le Haut des Evaux.  Their voices went silent as they fell.  Poor little Georges Perret, seventeen years old, fixed a look of infinite distress on Mme. Abry … Pierre Nardin, nineteen years old, couldn’t move another step and his brother Jean took him in his arms and brought him to face his executioner.  André Large, eighteen years old, cried out “Dirty boches!”  Fernand Goux, who had four children, pleaded with the monsters to spare him.  Seeing that his pleas were getting nowhere, cried out, “Cowards!”  The Italian was only too happy to kill.  The SS was glad to shoot those who were still moaning.  Poor Christ Guemann, such a strong man, wouldn’t die.  The SS shot him several times.  And Robert Goux, the giant who didn’t have an ounce of meanness in him.

The villains!  Taking the lives of forty men in cold blood, for vengeance.  Miserable cowards, who massacred so many civilians, so many hostages, guilty only of loving their country and defending it, you want to make war, and what a war, but you don’t want it turned on you!  Our men, our children – you could have just locked them up, but no, you needed blood.

At Chenebier, my sister found her husband’s glasses.  The frames were twisted, covered with dirt and blood.  The Cossacks stole everything these poor men had.  It wasn’t an accident the Germans had said, “give them food.”  Mama had given Jacques four spice cakes.  They must have had a feast.

And now, for us, life must go on.  But a black veil has been spread in front of our eyes.

We spent last night in Albert’s cellar.  A quiet night.  We slept a little.  I heard a lot of sobs.  I thought about a lot of things, about these words that my brother-in-law said, “What are we doing here on earth.  After all, I think I’d prefer they’d just shoot me …”  And, in my minds’ eye, I see Etobon in happy times.  Poor little village in the woods!  To have so many beautiful young men!  Now they’re all dead.  We’ll never again have those joyous celebrations in the parish hall … They’ll never play “Black Feather” or “The Little Dwarves of the Mountain” again.  I remember the photos taken on those happy occasions, these young men painted up like savages, standing next to the missionary tied to the cooking pot in front of the council fireplace.  All these children, so happy to be alive, shot, all except Fernand Perret (he died in Dachau, in January 1945, along with Raymond Nardin, brother of Pierre and Jean.  What a nightmare.)

Witnesses

The Germans brazenly committed the massacre in the middle of the village and allowed neighbors to watch from their windows. Several provided eyewitness reports. This report was later made by Philippe Kuntz, a tinsmith from nearby Buc. Although part of the initial roundup, he was spared and later returned to his home. His account follows.

September, 27, I went to the town hall with all of the men of Etobon.  I hadn’t taken part in the digging work of the previous days.  As soon as I went in, I was recognized by one of the accusing prisoners who named me as one of the former interpreters of the camp.  I was lined up among the suspects.  A junior officer of the Cossacks said, “That’s enough.”  There were 17 of us suspects.  Before leaving for Chenebier, the officer of the Cossacks had me say in French,  “You’re going to work on the fortifications at Héricourt.  It will only take two or three days.”  We left at the head of the detachment.

In the meeting room at Chenebier, the suspects were taken to one side.  A little later, two escaped prisoners appeared, re-equipped and armed.  I think they had come from Belfort with the Gestapo:  a lieutenant, an adjutant, a corporal and a soldier, all wearing the insignia (S.D.) on their sleeves.  The captain of the Cossacks was with them.  We were ordered to stand up, uncover our heads, and be silent.  Some of the men had their hands in their pockets, and were slapped for it by the lieutenant.  The ex-prisoners from Belfort went through our ranks and pointed out the men they pretended to recognize. 

As each designation was made, the officer took down the name and birth date of the victim.  They paid no attention to the age or the family situation … Just then, the lieutenant took me aside and said, “Why are you in the resistance?  Tell me the truth.”  “ I was brought in by force.  They forced me to present myself at the Etobon cemetery, September 9, or be shot.”  He asked if I knew some of the men and if I could name the leaders of the Etobon group.  I said I didn’t know any of the village men, because I was taken immediately to guard the prisoners.

The most persistent of the former prisoners (Karl Lade, no doubt) then called our comrade Georges Surleau into a smaller room and made him submit to interrogation, from which he emerged severely beaten.  Three others followed, whose names I don’t know, submitted to the same torture.  That’s when the other men, considered civilian prisoners, were led out, to be taken to Belfort.  (Of which seven would be shot ten days later at Banvillars.)

The lieutenant spoke a few words to the forty remaining men:  “You have made war against our soldiers.  You have killed some.  You’ve starved the prisoners.  You all deserve to die.  You will be shot.”

Immediately after, the adjutant made the first group of 10 to leave, and I heard the shots.

I was part of the second 10.  As I was leaving, the prisoner pointed to me and said, “this one was good to us.  He shouldn’t be shot.”  The officer pulled me aside and crossed out my name on his list.  I stayed in the meeting room until the executions were over.  The officers were also there.  They did not take part in the massacre.  

After the last shots were fired, the adjutant came back and saluted, saying, “Mission accomplished!” 

The lieutenant shook his hand.

They gave me a written order to present myself to Belfort to join the Todt organization.  They took me in a truck to the Commandant at Belfort.  There, I succeeded in sneaking away and got back to Buc in the evening.

More Witnesses

A marker commemorates the site of the mass grave at Chenebier

There were at least three other witnesses who provided accounts of the murder of 39 men against the church wall in Chenebier. In addition, residents of Chenebier told how the Germans forced them to dig a mass grave and bury their neighbors from Etobon. Some said their sabots (wooden shoes worn by farmers and gardeners) were filled with blood at the end of this ordeal.

Recently, a marker has been placed in the Chenebier cemetery to commemorate the location of the mass grave. The martyrs of Etobon are now buried in their own cemetery in their native village. The marker is located behind the Lutheran church, to the right at the entrance to the cemeter. It is next to Daya Ram's grave, one of the Indian prisoners who died in Chenebier. The Chenebier cemetery is also commemorated as an official Commonwealth Graves Site because of Ram's presence there.

Here are eyewitness reports from Chenebier:

Statement of Mayor Henisse:

“I did not take part in the executions.  After the crime, I had to get a dozen men together to dig a mass grave in the cemetery, very close to the church.  The victims were laid down on straw in three rows, each on top of the last.  The third row was not complete.  During the burial, the Italian who had been the executioner did not stop singing and whistling, with a kind of satanic joy.  In the days following this drama, the Germans billeted in the village forbid anyone from entering the cemetery and forbid anyone to leave flowers.”

Statement of M. Paul Lods, innkeeper at Chenebier:

“The soldier of the German army who was the executioner, September 27, 1944, belonged to a Cossack cavalry unit stationed in the village.  This man was staying in my house.  He volunteered and showed great joy at taking part in the execution.  We had his military papers in our hands.  He is an Italian citizen, Pietro Pilot, from Sicily, born June 29, 1924.”

The Abry home, across the street from the site of the massacreStatement of Mme. Emmanuel Abry

“The 67 men of Etobon, who arrived about 12:30, were locked up in the old sewing workshop next to my house.  My youngest daughter and I tried to listen to what was happening all afternoon, without being able to make sense of anything, except a few names … A little after 4:00, the first group of ten men were taken to the side of the church.  The victims were forced to kneel, facing the firing squad.   The next two groups were also killed while kneeling, but turned away from their executioners.  The fourth group died standing, facing the firing squad, singing “La Marseillaise.”  My husband and our neighbor Paul Roy watched the executions from the windows.  Both of them were then deported to Germany.” [editor's note: I officiated at Paul Roy's funeral. He returned home on foot from Germany when the war ended and lived into his 80s.]