The Greatest Escape: How one French community saved thousands of lives from the Nazis - A Good Place to Hide (44 page)

Inside the internment camp at Saint-Paul d’Eyieaux.
Left to right:
édouard Theis, Roger Darcissac, André Trocmé.
Collection Roger Darcissac, courtesy Lieu de Mémoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Boy Scout camp at Domino on the Île d’Oléron, 1919. André Trocmé (far right) was embarrassed to find himself ‘wearing only a bathing suit and exposing my body to the burning sun’.
Courtesy Nelly Trocmé Hewitt

Pierre Fayol
Courtesy Lieu de Memoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Pierre Piton
Haute-Loire departmental archive, Pierre Piton collection

Virginia Hall
Courtesy Lieu de Memoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Julius Schmähling as a prisoner-of-war
Courtesy Lieu de Memoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

YP company of the FFI (French Forces of the Interior): ‘Y’ for Yssingeaux, ‘P’ for
parachutage
, a reference to the parachute drops which took place at Villelonge, near Yssingeaux. The female figure in the centre is Virginia Hall.
Collection Roger Darcissac, courtesy Lieu de Mémoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Parachute drop of arms. Each canister also contained a packet of tea marked ‘Diane’, intended for Virginia Hall.
Collection Roger Darcissac, courtesy Lieu de Mémoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

The wrecked train and bridge at Chamalières. As this was a single line railway, the attack effectively blocked the rail route to Saint-étienne and Lyon.
Courtesy éditions L’Harmattan, Paris

Surrender of German troops at Estivareilles on 22 August 1944.
Private collection, courtesy Musée d’histoire du 20e siècle, Estivareilles

Liberation of Le Chambon, 3 September 1944. Troops from the Free French Army of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny receive a warm welcome as they pass through the village.
Collection Roger Darcissac, courtesy Lieu de Mémoire, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon