IN GERMANISED FRANCE
By RACHEL PALMER
MONTH in England after a year in Germanised France gives a welcome opportunity to sort out varied reflec- ons. I was staying with friends in Paris in the spring of last ear and I was unfortunately unable to leave Paris before the try of the Germans. From June to December I was there nder German rule. The behaviour of the occupying troops the city itself was exemplary, though one heard very ifferent tales from people coming from the country round; ut the general atmosphere of depression and misery was hard o bear. English males between 16-65 years of age were in- rned at St. Denis towards the end of June, but the rest of s, apart from having to report each day at the local commis- riat, were left unmolested. It came consequently as some- ng of a shock when, in the early morning of December 5th, o of the Garde Mobile came to my lodgings and arrested e. With about two thousand other British subjects living Paris I was sent to an internment camp at Besancon. We ent by train; we travelled all that night, and' on arriving about oon on the next day were marched to the barracks just out- de the town.
Here they were completely unprepared for us, having only ust evacuated the coloured troops who had been imprisoned ere. The place was very dirty, and in addition to cleaning e rooms and chopping wood for our stoves we had to collect Id tins from the rubbish-heap to eat our food from. (Later, peons and plates were provided.) There were about 4,000 f us in the camp, 40 or 5o men all over sixty-five and the est women and children, the ages ranging from a few weeks p to the oldest inhabitant, a woman of 96. I don't think t more than i,000 of these were British-born; there were y number of French women who had married Englishmen ut had never been to England and could speak very little glish. The conditions in the camp for the first few weeks ere extremely bad (8o people, including the old lady and a other and her 2-day-old baby, died in the first week), but y the time I left, at the end of February, they had greatly proved. The food was the same, I gathered, as all prisoners f war were having. We received Red Cross parcels once a onth and they were very much appreciated, and incidentally ere a good piece of propaganda, as the Germans were zed that starving England could afford to send us so much ood.
The chief hardships were the washing and sanitary arrange- ents, but by the end of three months indoor-lavatories had en installed, and even some of the buildings were de-loused. fact, we became convinced that the Germans were pre- aring the camp for some other use—a convalescent home was e most popular theory—and I was not at all surprised to ear in April (when I was elsewhere) that they had moved the mates to Vitt& The French workmen who came in each y to make these alterations were very friendly, bringing us ood when they could and, what was more precious, news, as ere was no means at all of knowing what was going on in the utside world. We were always talking of ways of escape, and it was one of these French workmen who said to us one day, " If ever you manage to get out of the camp go straight to such-and-such an address, and they will get you into Un- occupied France."
We did manage. Two of us were lucky enough to get out —I cannot say how—at the end of February. . We found the address, and with two guides and about zo French soldiers escaping from various camps, crossed into Unoccupied France that same night. We walked for two hours in a snow-storm, stumbling along at no great pace through the dark (once I lost a shoe, but by a miracle found it again ; this was an awful moment, because the others couldn't wait for me), and from time to time we could see the lights of the German outposts on either side. So it was an indescribable relief when we finally arrived, quite exhausted, at a little café and were told we were over the border. We were also told, now, that on the previous trip one of the parry had been shot by a German sentry. We owe our freedom to a number of French men and women who risk liberty if not life in this service. I realise that details of our flight would add to the interest of the story, 'but they cannot be given without increasing the danger of these brave people being discovered. I can say, however, that we were the third couple to escape from the camp, and that an entirely different device was used each time. Prisoners had to invent their own unaided ways of getting out.
The next morning we got back into our wet clothes and set off for Vichy and the American Embassy. Part of the journey we did by train. At lunch-time we went to the restaurant-car and asked the steward if he could give us some- thing to eat. He asked for coupons, and of course we hadn't any ; but he looked sympathetic, and we told him we had just escaped from an internment camp. He led us to a corner- table and positively heaped our plates with food. When we tried to pay he shook us by the hand and said how delighted he was to be able to do something for the English. This was an attitude we met again and again and all through our stay in Unoccupied France we received nothing but kindness. In Mar- seilles (where we went from Vichy, to apply for the visas needed to get us to Lisbon) food is really scarce, yet people would come up to us and beg us to urge England not to allow food into the country, as the Germans took the lot. I was told in Paris, before I was interned, that people in the Midi did not under- stand the meaning of Occupation, as they saw no Germans and were not suffering; but those who spoke to us seemed fully conscious of the state of affairs, and certainly in Marseilles you see quite enough Germans, in and out of uniform.
The French Press, which is pro-German of course, seemed very little read; people relied on the Swiss papers (which can be bought in the big towns and give the news very impartially) and the wireless. I listened to the French broadcasts from England once or twice and on each occasion heard some very vehement attacks on Marshal Petain. These struck me as ill- judged. I think that Main is, at the moment, the one man in France whom the French trust. I should say that the average Frenchman today considers that he is a solitary honest man among the rogues at Vichy and that he is genuinely trying to do his best for France. The Frenchman's instinctive reaction towards General de Gaulle is one of mistrust, not, I think, for any specific reason, but because he is suspicious of everyone just now. I don't think that personal attacks on Petain will make Frenchmen change their minds, I think they merely make them annoyed. Still, as I say, I listened to only a few of these broadcasts and may have picked on exceptional talks.
We stayed in Marseilles seven weeks waiting for our visas, which were obtained at the end of April; and, except for our longing to get home, we had nothing to worry about. We had every sort of kindness from every sort of person. " How the English must loathe us now! " was said to us again and again. I haven't been long enough in my country to know if this is true. I hope it isn't, because I think that the French as individuals are in need, at the moment, of a great deal of sympathy.
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