Free Voices from the Dark Years by Douglas Boyd

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    Many people contributed to the research for this book by reliving with me their experiences during the dark years of the German occupation of France. They recalled moments of anguish and joy, of shame and triumph, of fear and elation. They unearthed personal papers, showed me treasured mementoes and lent precious documents, manuscripts, photographs and books on trust. Many said at the end of our meeting, ‘I haven’t helped you much’, but research is like an iceberg: it is the nine-tenths below the water-line that gives balance and perspective.
    From Bordeaux in the south-west of France to Schirmeck in Alsace, survivors asked to remain anonymous after telling me things they had never divulged to anyone else. To them goes my greatest gratitude. Among those I can thank, in Tarn-et-Garonne, Andrée Fourcassié, née Giraud, was my unassuming guide to the misty timescape of the past, opening doors I should never otherwise have known existed; Chantal Fraïsse welcomed me to the Archives Municipales of Moissac; Joseph and Paulette Gouzi offered hospitality, shared memories and lent precious unpublished documentation; Jean-Claude Simon made available photographs of the Maison de Moissac rescue operation; and Françoise Blanchard, née de Monbrison, unlocked the rich resource of her family’s published and unpublished records of the occupation.
    In Paris, Naomi Wilson shared her research for a PhD thesis on women’s experience of the occupation. In Gironde, Christian Chabrier, Jacques de La Bardonnie, Cathérine and Robert Hestin and many other neighbours and friends dug into their personal memories; Trudi Higgins supplied correspondence from Ste-Foy-la-Grande; Maj. Len Chaganis unearthed material on Operation Cockade; and the wife of dying hero Henri Salmide (formerly Heinz Stahlschmidt) put aside her grief to talk to me. In Lot-et-Garonne, Guy de La Bardonnie generously shared both published and unpublished resources. In Charentes, Philippe Delaurain gave me the benefit of his encyclopaedic knowledge of the occupation, as well as access to his unsubsidised museum Le Musée de la Poche, which told so well the story of the Royan pocket of resistance until it had to close for lack of funds. And fellow BBC-pensioners Don Craven and Brian Johnson helped me track down the Morse Vee-sign used for so many broadcasts to Occupied Europe.
    With good reason, historical writers thank the spouses or partners who tolerate the solitude imposed by their craft and their spending more time with the dead than the living. For a person as sociable as Atarah, this is doubly hard; her enthusiasm and active support is more valued than she imagines. Among my predecessors on the research trail, American historian Robert Paxton deserves acclaim for first shining the light of enquiry on the dark years at a time when nobody in France wanted to talk about them. On a professional plane, my thanks go to agent Mandy Little for getting the first edition published and to commissioning editor Mark Beynon, editor Rebecca Newton, proofreader Alwyn Harrison and designer Jemma Cox at The History Press for this edition.
    A UTHOR N OTE
      1.  All translations are by the author, unless otherwise attributed.
      2.  All reasonable steps have been taken to clear copyright material. If any copyright has been inadvertently infringed, please write to the author, care of the publisher.
      3.  All photographs are from the author’s personal collection, unless otherwise stated.

L IST OF A BBREVIATIONS
     
     
BCRA
Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (eventual title of the London-based co-ordinating centre of Gaullist intelligence networks)
BEF
British Expeditionary Force
CGQJ
Commissariat Générale aux Questions Juives – main body charged with enforcing anti-Semitic laws
CNR
Conseil National de la Résistance
EIF
Eclaireurs Israélites de France – the Jewish Scout movement
ERR
Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg – Nazi cultural