My Communications with Non-Occupied France

June-September 1940.

I was without news of any French friends for about three weeks. The first thing that I actually saw myself was a stream of refugees from villages bordering the Swiss frontier into Geneva. It was the same scene that has been described now so often. There would always be a mattress or two fixed on the roof of the car, the car itself would be crowded with people, sometimes some poultry would be brought along and always cooking pots. These civilians streamed over and were, in most cases, sent to camps by the Swiss officials and collections of money, food and clothing were made by private individuals, charitable groups and the newspapers. The bulk of these refugees had returned to France by mid August.

I saw a number of sick or slightly wounded French, including a few of the native troops, at the medical base in our town. I noticed at once that their uniforms were in rags and yet these were men from the regions near Switzerland where there had been little heavy fighting. Their boots were in particularly bad condition, looking like paper. Much comment from Swiss officer friends.

The Swiss soldiers and in particular my policeman-dog traine
friend who was a non commissioned officer, told many stories of
French soldiers arriving without rifles, or munitions, or with
munitions of no value. My policeman friend and another Swiss

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soldier criticised particularly the dirty state of the rifles. This
is the deadly sin of Switzerland, instilled into children before they
can walk ! A Swiss officer told me that he had seen many French
officers arrive in cars, having abandoned their men. Again, some-
body else from Zurich told me that the men had mutinied and refused
to obey orders. It was very hard to get to the bottom of these
stories, there was something to them but I think they were also
exaggerated although I believe my friend, the officer mentioned above,
to be trustworthy and he had himself been on the frontier when the
incident occurred above described. Agains this, all Switzerland
united in admiration of the Poles. All said that they came over
the frontier in perfect order, that they had collected all the military
equipment they could, that the French had abandoned, and had destroyed
it or brought it in to Switzerland and all through the summer
Poles escaped from France straggled in over the mountains and gave
themselves up to the military in all the towns along Lake Geneva.
A lot tried to escape and reach the Near East and England and there
were constant notices in the newspapers threatening Swiss with
fines or imprisonment, if they helped the Poles with advice, money or
civilian clothes.

It must have been the end of June when the first letters began
to reach me from France. I heard first of all from the department
of Lot, my friend there said that there were no groceries, no dairy
produce, few potatoes and little meat, that all refugees were sent to
work in the fields and that there was a general feeling of intense
depression. Food conditions were getting even worse during the

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summer and up to the time I left, I was busy forwarding for her
letters to friends in South America, imploring them to try to get
her a visa to join them. Another acquaintance of mine
had reached the same town and added postscripts to these letters,
they were apparently very scared of the political events for oddly
enough, my friend's name by marriage was Blum, and she asked me
not to use it but to use her maiden name. There was no relation-
ship with the politician and my friend's husband who had been in
the French army, was missing up to the time that I left.

My next news was from an Englishman, aged 73, resident at Antibes for many years. He wrote that at his age he had not felt that he could undertake the coastal steamer trip to England. His first letters were calm, later he said that people who had owned villas near the Italian frontier, had found them looted, that the food conditions were getting worse and worse, and that English people who had been left in the south were having an extremely difficult time. He quoted me a number of extraordinary rumors, such as Italy was in a state of revolution, England and Italy had concluded a separate peace, London had been utterly destroyed. He begged me not to return to England, showing, I think, the influence of continual propaganda and false news, for normally he is very bulldog English. I wrote him constantly to try to get to Portugal. I heard another English resident there, who said that there had been many killed at Menton and Cap Martin.

The next news was from a girl whose father was a wealthy
industrialist. They had got away at the beginning of May and

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were in the department of Indre. She wrote quite openly at the end of August that they had a splendid radio and listened daily to the B.B.C. reports. She also said that they had moved from one town to another by car, with a special permit, that it was astounding to see the deserted roads and the wreckage of abandoned cars from which anything that could be converted for shelters, such as the seats, had been removed. She said that they had plenty of everything except chocolate, butter and milk and even offered to send me some olive oil! She wrote openly in every letter of her British sympathies.

I then heard from a refugee, a scholar, Jewish, by birth German, but who had been resident in France for, I think, fifteen years. He escaped to near Lourdes. He reported very difficult food conditions, no daily produce and no groceries and found his position very difficult with the authorities. He had been waiting for an American visa which was granted to him, in the beginning of August but the French authorities then demanded ransom, though he has always been miserably poor, living on a tiny allowance from a cultural fund, which was paid by some Swiss friends and myself, but I have not heard whether he got out or not. I fear not. (He was killed at Lourdes.)

My Swiss chauffeur went over in a rowing boat to the French side of the lake. He could not land but friends came and shouted to him. In Savoie they were stripped of all groceries, milk, butter etc, and were rationed with one slice of bread daily. They were miserably unhappy and their condition made a great impression in the neighbouring Swiss towns.

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There were about five days in July when post came to Switzerland from occupied France and I got a letter from an American in Paris. He said " for God's sake do anything but get me out of here ", asked me to let his family know in the States where he was and to send him funds through the American Embassy. Naturally, I could not send him funds but I cabled his family and had the matter reported to the American Minister at Bern. I do not know what happened to him.

I had a friend, an American girl, who had been resident in Paris for 25 years, she had a bookshop there and library, catering for the American students at the Sorbonne. I heard indirectly that she was safe but in great economic difficulties as naturally her business was ruined, also that French friends of hers and mine, who lived near, were safe, but no direct communication was possible, though the American Legation at Bern undertook to forward a letter to her and to try to obtain information. Apparently even they were unable to get into communication with occupied France.

Just as I was leaving Switzerland, a Swiss told me that they had heard on the frontier, the SWITZERLAND secret German radio announcing to French soldiers in April, May and early June, exactly what their officers were doing, naming them by name and generally disrupting the morale. The Swiss had searched for these posts inside the Swiss frontier, without success.

I tried to send in news to my friends as long as I was in Switzerland, but one had to be very careful and I do not know if they always understood the hidden sense of my remarks. They did receive my letters though the average time to Lot, Indre and Lourdes was ten days.

NORWAY.
I had no actual contacts in Norway but a Zurich friend who had much to do with Norway, told me that there were seventy Norwegian students at Zurich. A German had been sent to explain to them that they were to finish their studies but that their allowances would be considerably reduced. They had abused him and the majority wanted to know how they could get to England and join in the fight. Practically all were anti German.

HOLLAND.
I had a Jewish friend married to a Dutch doctor at the Hague. After a long delay I got two postcards from her, saying simply that they were well but hoping to reach New York via Siberia. As the husband had a large and successful practice, a house inherited from grandparents in the best part of the Hague, there was a baby of a few months, a blind grandmother and a child. I think they must have been pretty desperate to attempt the Siberian trip.

I had an Aryan Dutch friend married to a Swiss, she had many letters from her relatives and these all said " fortunately this has been a good summer for fruit and vegetables ". All complained later of the rations, particularly of coffee and sugar. All were unhappy. Some wrote eventually quite incautiously, saying that they were Dutch and would always remain Dutch etc, that they had hope the bad times would soon be over.

POLAND.
Several Swiss had friends or relatives in Poland, the general impression was that the friends in Russian occupied Poland had little to eat but had not been beaten. The ones in German occupied Poland, mostly died or disappeared. This was a great surprise to the Swiss who hate Russia. We heard of Polish Jew who had just finished his medical studies and escaped to the Russian occupied part and was immediately given a job by the Russians fighting an epidemic. Of course we had no news of what happened to him afterwards.