arrival Brunner unleashed a manhunt. It was led by the Gestapo, energetically aided and abetted by the French fascists, the Parti Populaire Français. Word went round the Jewish community like wildfire. A few of the refugees – some of whom had only just arrived – gathered up their portable possessions, rushed to the railway station in the Avenue Thiers, and found places on the last train from Nice. This steamed slowly east along the spectacular Riviera coast, the azure seas glittering in the autumn sunshine, through the
belle époque
resorts of Beaulieu, Monaco and Menton, across the border at Ventimiglia into the Italian province of Cuneo. Other refugees, the less fortunate, were seized in their homes and hotels, on the roads to the north and east and in the city itself. According to one witness, Léon Poliakov, ‘Those official black Citroëns cruised the streets of Nice, and passengers attentively scrutinized passers-by. At any moment, a pedestrian would be asked to get into a car … The car went to the synagogue. There the victim was undressed and, if he was circumcised, he automatically took his place in the next convoy to Drancy.’ 6 Brunner’s Gestapo also headed for the offices of the
département
prefect Jean Chaigneau and the Italian consul-general Augusto Spechel. These two men held the names and addresses of the Jews in Nice itself and all the assigned residence communities on the Alpine border. Prefect Chaigneau was a courageous man. He had burned his lists.Spechel had taken the precaution of transferring his to Rome. The Gestapo left empty-handed and furious.
As the manhunt progressed over the following thirty-six hours, two other groups of Jewish refugees were still on their way to Nice. One was a party of two hundred elderly, children and young mothers from Megève. They had been brought by truck from the resort to Chambéry, there to take a train to Nice via Grenoble. As the train neared the Dauphiné capital, so too did the Wehrmacht approaching from the west. Somehow word was passed to the train and it was diverted to the relative safety of Turin, over the Italian border. The younger and fitter from the community in Megève were to undertake the whole journey by road. On the morning of 11 September 1943, a long line of charcoal-burning gazogènes could be seen heading east along the coast road from Cannes. As the convoy approached the Var to the west of Nice, a roadblock barred its way. At first no one could make out by which forces it was manned. Soon it became apparent. Field grey: it was the Wehrmacht. A few of the Jews had the energy and strength of will to jump out of the trucks and disappear into the stony Provençal countryside. The rest were captured.
For them it was Drancy, Auschwitz and the gas chambers.
*
Meanwhile, in Saint-Martin-Vésubie the contingency plan of escape over the border to Italy was put into effect. It had been an agonising decision for these benighted people. They could stay where they were: perhaps the Germans would not trouble themselves with such a remote place. They could seek refuge in the immediate – and inhospitable – surroundings. Or they could head for Italy: another country with another language and another people, where they had no idea of what they would find. Most chose to head over the two passes for Italy, perhaps feeling that it was better to act than to await events. Few had any experience of the high Alpine world: of hanging glaciers, loose screes, of precipices and rockfalls, of foot- and handholds that could crumble at a touch.
The first of them set out within hours of Eisenhower’sannouncement, on the evening of 8 September 1943. Autumn was already closing its fist on the terrain, turning the leaves in the lower valley around Saint-Martin-Vésubie to russet and yellow, the light shading upwards to the evergreen spruce and fir, and then to the bare rock above the treeline. Snow was in the air, ibex and chamois grazing in the middle distance,
belle époque
resorts of Beaulieu, Monaco and Menton, across the border at Ventimiglia into the Italian province of Cuneo. Other refugees, the less fortunate, were seized in their homes and hotels, on the roads to the north and east and in the city itself. According to one witness, Léon Poliakov, ‘Those official black Citroëns cruised the streets of Nice, and passengers attentively scrutinized passers-by. At any moment, a pedestrian would be asked to get into a car … The car went to the synagogue. There the victim was undressed and, if he was circumcised, he automatically took his place in the next convoy to Drancy.’ 6 Brunner’s Gestapo also headed for the offices of the
département
prefect Jean Chaigneau and the Italian consul-general Augusto Spechel. These two men held the names and addresses of the Jews in Nice itself and all the assigned residence communities on the Alpine border. Prefect Chaigneau was a courageous man. He had burned his lists.Spechel had taken the precaution of transferring his to Rome. The Gestapo left empty-handed and furious.
As the manhunt progressed over the following thirty-six hours, two other groups of Jewish refugees were still on their way to Nice. One was a party of two hundred elderly, children and young mothers from Megève. They had been brought by truck from the resort to Chambéry, there to take a train to Nice via Grenoble. As the train neared the Dauphiné capital, so too did the Wehrmacht approaching from the west. Somehow word was passed to the train and it was diverted to the relative safety of Turin, over the Italian border. The younger and fitter from the community in Megève were to undertake the whole journey by road. On the morning of 11 September 1943, a long line of charcoal-burning gazogènes could be seen heading east along the coast road from Cannes. As the convoy approached the Var to the west of Nice, a roadblock barred its way. At first no one could make out by which forces it was manned. Soon it became apparent. Field grey: it was the Wehrmacht. A few of the Jews had the energy and strength of will to jump out of the trucks and disappear into the stony Provençal countryside. The rest were captured.
For them it was Drancy, Auschwitz and the gas chambers.
*
Meanwhile, in Saint-Martin-Vésubie the contingency plan of escape over the border to Italy was put into effect. It had been an agonising decision for these benighted people. They could stay where they were: perhaps the Germans would not trouble themselves with such a remote place. They could seek refuge in the immediate – and inhospitable – surroundings. Or they could head for Italy: another country with another language and another people, where they had no idea of what they would find. Most chose to head over the two passes for Italy, perhaps feeling that it was better to act than to await events. Few had any experience of the high Alpine world: of hanging glaciers, loose screes, of precipices and rockfalls, of foot- and handholds that could crumble at a touch.
The first of them set out within hours of Eisenhower’sannouncement, on the evening of 8 September 1943. Autumn was already closing its fist on the terrain, turning the leaves in the lower valley around Saint-Martin-Vésubie to russet and yellow, the light shading upwards to the evergreen spruce and fir, and then to the bare rock above the treeline. Snow was in the air, ibex and chamois grazing in the middle distance,
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