The Young Survivors

by Debra Barnes

  ‘Hooray!’ someone shouted, and we all cheered.

  ‘Let’s go!’

  We followed our guide to a nearby field and were each handed a gun, whichever came out of the box next. There were a few pistols, but most got either a rifle or a submachine gun. I was handed the latter and then came the lesson. For the rest of the day we were shown how to take aim and fire and how to reload ammunition, and then we got to practise firing at a target at the end of the field. ‘The rest we’ll show you along the way,’ said our guide. ‘If we spend any longer here there’ll be nothing left for us to do out there. Get some food and sleep and we’ll move out at first light.’

  ****

  Early the next morning two trucks arrived.

  ‘OK, let’s mix up the groups from yesterday; we don’t want all the rookie marksmen together. Get on the trucks and sit among the hay bales and farm equipment,’ we were told.

  Henri and I didn’t manage to get on the same truck but when we set off, we were travelling in the same direction – south on the Nationale 20 towards Limoges. Along with the ten new recruits in my truck was one Free French officer who explained the situation as we travelled.

  ‘The German battalions of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, Das Reich, have been ordered to head north to Normandy to stop the Allied invasion. They arrived in Southern France from Russia in January, so they’ve had time to familiarise themselves with the terrain. They are unable to travel by train as the railway tracks have been sabotaged by our freedom fighters, so they are travelling by road. The order is to ambush them at every possible opportunity, whether that means felling trees or building blockades to hinder their progress. We are armed, but we are not stupid. We know the soldiers of Das Reich have the military advantage over us, but we are brave and we cannot be identified. As far as the Germans are concerned, we are regular civilians – at least until we shoot them!’

  His words brought cheers from the guys. ‘Hide your guns in the hay and look like farmers!’ Everyone laughed. I thought that shouldn’t be too difficult for me.

  When we reached Limoges Henri’s truck continued south while mine turned west. It was a beautiful summer day and as we drove through the quiet countryside I drifted off and dreamt of lying in long grass with a beautiful girl by my side. In my imagination the humming sound was the song of crickets, not the engine of the truck. The tickling sensation on my face was my girlfriend teasing me with a blade of grass and not flies attracted to the smell of my sweat. The Allies had landed in France and the war was coming to an end. I could find my family and get on with my life.

  We drove through villages which seemed untouched by the war, perfect images of rural France in the sunshine: Verneuil-sur-Vienne, Veyrac, Oradour-sur-Glane, Saint Junien, and we had just passed Rochechouart. I imagined coming to live in one of these villages; maybe Papa and I could run a small farm together like Monsieur Masson with his son, who would soon return from forced labour in Germany.

  There was a clearing off the side of the road. We parked a short way in, out of sight.

  ‘Take your weapons and five minutes to stretch your legs,’ the officer told us. ‘We’re getting close to Das Reich. Keep quiet and stay alert.’ Then we heard something approaching. We hid in the long grass and watched a truck of German soldiers pass and continue in the direction we had just come from. We stayed hidden for a while, waiting to see if more German vehicles would follow, but no one else came. Then we heard gunshots in the distance. We gathered together while our officer spoke.

  ‘Walk back into the last village and see if there is anything we can help with before we carry on,’ he said. ‘Hide your weapons here and walk off in twos or threes. Then come back and report what you find. Don’t all walk together, go chatting as if you’re farmworkers going to get supplies.’

  I paired up with another guy around my age and we were the first to start walking back to the last village. As we walked, we talked about our families and what we would do once the war was finally over. His name was Victor and he was from Grenoble. He had been forced into the Vichy army but deserted to join the Resistance two days ago when he heard of the Allied invasion. While we were walking we didn’t hear any further gunshots and everything seemed quiet, but as we came to the first houses of Rochechouart we saw a woman standing by the road. She was crying.

  ‘Madame, what is the matter?’

  ‘The Germans shot my husband,’ she said, between sobs. She pointed to the field where we saw three or four bodies. ‘They said it was punishment for what the Resistance have done.’

  Victor and I looked at each other. Even though we had only joined the Free French forces the day before, we both felt somehow responsible for this woman’s grief. If we had arrived just a bit earlier, we might have been able to stop this from happening.

  ‘Is there anything we can do for you?’ I asked the woman.

  ‘Please carry my husband and the others into the house,’ she replied through her tears.

  Victor and I lifted her husband’s body between us and carried it through the kitchen door into the farmhouse.

  ‘Where shall we put him?’ Victor asked. But the woman didn’t reply. She was staring at the body of her dead husband and didn’t seem to hear us.

  ‘I think we’d better hurry up and get going,’ I said. ‘There might be other people who need our help too.’

  ‘Let’s put him down and get the others,’ said Victor.

  We lowered the body of her husband to the floor as carefully as we could. The distraught woman fell to her knees by his side. Victor and I went back outside to return to the field but were stopped in our tracks.

  ‘Halt!’

  We put up our hands in surrender to the small group of young SS soldiers who pointed rifles at us. One of them searched us, but there was nothing to find. I started to speak, wanting to explain that we were only farmworkers, but they commanded me to be quiet. They told us to walk around the house back to the road, keeping our hands in the air, indicating the way with their rifles. As we reached the road we saw more soldiers and a group of around two hundred men, women and children. The SS were under orders to round up anyone they saw fit. They pushed us to join the others and marched us all into town.

  ****

  We were made to stand against a wall while the SS pointed a row of machine guns at us from across the street. I could hear them talking among themselves; many of them had an Alsatian accent similar to what I used to hear as a child in Metz. I wondered if any of these Nazi soldiers had been the Jew-haters who had chased and fought me as a child at school; they looked around my age. I recognised a couple of other Resistance guys from our truck in the group of prisoners, but it appeared to be mainly local people. Those bastards had arrested children too, many of whom cried as the hours passed and we were forced to remain standing against the wall. Some fainted and were left where they fell: the Germans ordered us not to help them. People begged for water but none was given. We stood for six hours until ten o’clock in the evening when the SS commander appeared. He was furious and shouted at the officers to report to him immediately. Then two members of the French Red Cross drove up in a jeep and approached the SS commander. ‘You must release the women and children,’ they demanded.

  ‘No, they are all terrorists and they will be executed,’ replied the commander.

  ‘These are innocent civilians,’ said the Red Cross.

  ‘Innocent? Have you seen what these innocent civilians have done to our soldiers? They attacked the garrison at Tulle this very day. They do not deserve to be treated with the honour deserving of a soldier. They have mutilated and tortured our men.’

  ‘How long have you been holding these prisoners?’ asked the Red Cross.

  ‘Since the afternoon,’ said one of the officers.

  ‘How then could these people be responsible for those acts today? Tulle is over one hundred kilometres away!’

  At this the SS commander went off to speak to his men, but not so far out of earshot that I could
n’t hear him. He was irritated by the continued attacks by the Free French Forces they had endured since starting their expedition north. The plan to travel by train had been sabotaged and now the freedom fighters were making the journey longer and more arduous than expected. After a short discussion the commander agreed to release the women and children under fourteen. This appeared to satisfy the Red Cross workers, who went on their way.

  The rest of us were marched to a yard. ‘You will sleep here. In the morning we will check your papers. Whoever has their papers in order will be free to leave. Anyone who does not have papers will come with us to Limoges.’

  I had my papers, but they carried the Star of David and the word ‘Juif’. I had to decide whether to get rid of them or not. I passed a sleepless night on the gravel floor of the yard, sharing the space with one hundred other men, while I tried to work out which would be the better option for me.

  ****

  By morning I decided it would be better to show my papers than not to have any at all. I guessed the SS were more interested in getting rid of the Free French Forces than finding Jews right now. The officers came into the yard and kicked the prisoners awake. Those who had managed to sleep opened their eyes to find a rifle pointed at them. We were ordered to form a line and they started to check our papers. Most were happy to get this done as quickly as possible. They went to the front of the queue but we soon learnt no one would be allowed to leave until everyone had been investigated. I began moving further and further towards the end of the line in the desperate hope they might lose interest in checking everyone’s papers before it was my turn. My spirit sank when I saw the commander approach me. He had a submachine gun slung over his shoulder like a big shot.

  ‘Papers!’

  My heart was beating rapidly. I could feel beads of sweat prickling my forehead and I willed my hands to stop shaking as I handed my papers over. The commander unfolded the document and I watched as the blood drained from his face. I can imagine what was going through his mind: how come this Jew has not been deported yet? The commander regained his composure.

  ‘What are you doing here when your papers say you work on a farm far away?’

  My mind raced for an answer. ‘The farmer gave me the day off and I came to buy a pair of shoes. The soldiers stopped me and brought me here.’

  The commander looked down at my worn-out shoes. He kept looking between my face, my papers and my shoes. He must have thought I was either part of the Resistance and too stupid to show false papers, or else I was telling the truth. I was convinced this was the end for me, and my thoughts turned to my friends and family who I would never see again.

  ‘You can go,’ I heard him say. The commander handed me back my papers. Now it was my turn to be confused. I went to join the other men who had their papers in order. At the back of my mind I was thinking: surely this is a trick. They weren’t going to let us go. They were going to shoot us all.

  In the end, ten among us did not have papers. The big shot commander made a show of saying, ‘These men have been arrested for not having identification papers on their person. We will take them to Limoges. If they can prove their identity we will let them go. The rest of you must wait for one hour and then you may leave.’

  The SS marched the ten men out of the yard, shutting the gate behind them and then we heard them drive away. It went quiet. We sat down and waited, firstly in silence then, little by little, we started talking, asking questions to which no one knew the answers.

  ‘What will happen to the ones they arrested?’

  ‘What will happen to us?’

  We fell silent again and then heard voices outside the gate. I thought it was the Germans returning for us but then someone recognised his wife’s voice and called her name.

  ‘Julia, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, my dear. Are you alright?’

  ‘I’m fine. Are there any Germans out there?’

  ‘They’ve left. Come out!’

  We opened the gate to the yard and walked out hesitantly. I still half-expected there to be a rifle aimed at me but the only people we found were the family members of some of the men, waiting to greet their fathers, sons and husbands with kisses. We were free to leave.

  I made my way back to the truck and found most of the Resistance guys regrouped and my weapon still where I had hidden it the day before. I told them about what had happened and they said I had guts. I’d survived my first war story! Later that day word came that the SS had taken those ten men who did not have papers, driven them out of town, made them dig their own graves and shot them dead.

  ****

  It was only five days since the Allies had landed at Normandy but so much had changed. I was now a freedom fighter! We spent most of the day building blockades; choosing to build them on major roads knowing the SS couldn’t travel on the smaller roads with their heavy, slow-moving tanks. As we were finishing up, we received news that we were needed back in Oradour-sur-Glane.

  As we approached, we noticed an unpleasant smell that got stronger as we drew nearer. By the time we entered the town the stench was overwhelming. I felt nauseous and copied the others by ripping off a part of my shirt and tying it around my face as a makeshift mask. The smell of my sweat and dirt were sweet compared to this overpowering stench.

  The few townspeople we met were overcome with grief and it took a while before we could find someone able to talk to us. A man sitting on the steps of a house finally managed to answer our questions about what had happened.

  ‘The SS. Yesterday. They rounded up every single person in the town. Said it was to check papers. Said they were looking for guns and ammunition. The men were taken away. The women and children all locked in the church. They… they killed everyone. They shot the men. They burnt down the church with the women and little ones inside. Sick old women. Mothers with babes in arms. Young children – they emptied the four schools in the town and murdered them all. The people you see are parents of those schoolchildren who live outside the town. They have come to look for their sons and daughters… but there is no one. They are all dead. That smell? It is the smell of their death. Go, look inside the burnt ruins of the church. The bodies of the angels are there. Some don’t even look human anymore.’ The man began to weep. ‘This is my house. This was my home. I was away working. Someone came to find me. But it was too late. My family have all gone. My wife. My parents. My children. My neighbours. My friends. No one is left. No one. There were over six hundred people here. One or two escaped, three at most.’

  As he told us this most terrible story I noticed a number of dogs walking around, some coming to us, sniffing around and howling.

  ‘I know these dogs. They are from here. They are looking for their masters, but they are all gone,’ said the man.

  We walked over to the place where the church had stood just a day before, passing a huge number of empty ammunition cases by the entrance. The smell was unbearable, and the sight was nightmarish: twisted, burnt bodies of mothers who tried in vain to shield their babies, and young children piled together behind the altar. Only a few still had their faces, some looked peaceful – perhaps those were the lucky ones who had been shot dead before the fire took hold. The others had the tortured look of people dying in agony.

  Georgette

  Louveciennes

  June 1944

  Our routine at the new house was similar to that of the old house: Jacqueline helped us get dressed, served our food and washed our clothes. She took us to the Marly woods to play and helped us to put on shows and celebrate our birthdays. She had even started sleeping in our bedroom and comforting the girls who would wake from nightmares. Henriette and I shared a bed and always slept well, but we were the lucky ones; we had each other.

  One change was that a German officer now came every day, rather than every week, to make sure no one had run away. One of the little girls, Karin Rozenbaum, had disappeared. One day, Karin’s brother came to visit; he asked Karin to show him the garden and
the next thing we knew, they had both run off! The grown-ups were terrified of what the German officer would say when he came by that day, but he just wrote it down on his list and left. I hoped Karin and her brother were alright.

  ****

  We were playing in the garden at the front of the orphanage when the gate opened and a girl around the same age as Jacqueline walked in.

  ‘Christina? Is that you?’ said Jacqueline.

  ‘Jacqueline!’ They ran to each other and hugged.

  ‘Children, come and meet an old friend of mine. This is Christina. We used to attend school together,’ said Jacqueline.

  ‘Bonjour, Christina,’ we all chorused.

  ‘Bonjour, les enfants,’ she replied. Turning to her friend she said, ‘Wow, you have a lot of children!’ and they both laughed.

  ‘They’re not actually mine, although some of them think they are!’ she explained, looking at Corinne in particular, who was always being told not to call her ‘Maman’. ‘I’m only looking after them while their parents are away. I’m sure I will be handing them all back soon,’ she said, although she didn’t sound too convincing.

  ‘No, Maman, I want to stay with you!’ cried Corinne, making Jacqueline and Christina giggle again.

  ‘Christina, it’s so good to see you,’ said Jacqueline. ‘How is your family?’

  ‘Everyone is fine. I saw your grandmother and she told me you were here. I must say, it was a relief. When you first disappeared, I went to your apartment and it was locked up with a seal on the door. That was over a year ago. I thought I’d never see you again.’

  ‘I’m so pleased you came, it’s great to see an old friend. Now, tell me about school and what I’ve missed.’

  ‘Nothing interesting. I can’t understand what you like so much about school.’

  ‘You’d think differently if you weren’t allowed to go anymore,’ Jacqueline said, and Christina looked a little ashamed.

  ‘I asked my father if I could come to visit you. At first he said “no” because it would be too dangerous, but I pleaded with him and he eventually agreed. It’s not safe to travel anywhere now, but I don’t care; I told him I would leave early and be back well before dark. When he finally gave me permission, he said I should bring my camera. Would you like me to take some pictures of you?’