The Greatest Escape: How one French community saved thousands of lives from the Nazis - A Good Place to Hide (43 page)

Gurs internment camp. Those who survived it remember terrible food, disease, rats, and above all, mud. Each of these small huts was supposed to accommodate 60 people.
Photographer unknown

La Guespy (The Wasps Nest) was the first shelter for children ‘transferred’ from Vichy French internment camps to Le Chambon. This photograph appears to have been taken around the time La Guespy opened, in May 1941.
Courtesy Mémorial de la Shoah, Paris

L’Abric (The Shelter), another of the guesthouses in Le Chambon.
Archives of Contemporary History, ETH Zurich, NL August Bohny-Reiter

The children’s guest house Tante Soly sheltered 15 to 20 children at a time, mostly Jewish. German soldiers were in the habit of taking cover from the rain under the little balcony near the gate.
Contemporary photograph by the author

La Maison des Roches (House of Rocks)
Contemporary photograph by the author

Beau-Soleil (Lovely Sunshine)
Contemporary photograph by the author

Winter on the Plateau, 1942–43.
Roger Darcissac collection, courtesy Lieu de Mémoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Teachers at the New Cévenole School.
Third from right, standing,
Magda Trocmé, who taught Italian;
fourth from right, standing,
Jacqueline Decourdemanche, school secretary and active forger;
fourth from right, seated,
Hilde Hoefert, who taught German and has some claim to being the first Jewish refugee in the village. She arrived from Vienna in 1938 after Hitler annexed Austria.
Roger Darcissac collection, courtesy Lieu de Mémoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

School play at the New Cévenole School during wartime, precise date unknown.
Courtesy Catherine Cambessédès

Kid’s sack race on school Sports Day.
Roger Darcissac collection, courtesy Lieu de Mémoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Jewish children dancing the
Hora
in the woods near Le Chambon.
Courtesy Chambon Foundation, Los Angeles

A wartime Christmas in the Protestant Temple, Le Chambon.
Roger Darcissac, courtesy Lieu de Mémoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

George Lamirand addresses the youth of Le Chambon. Note the quasi-military dress, unnecessary for a civilian minister. The uniformed figure to the right of Lamirand is Robert Bach, Prefect of the Haute-Loire.
Collection Roger Darcissac, courtesy Lieu de Mémoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon