Who are the Escapees from France?
During the Second World War, it was French resistance fighters who decided to leave everything behind to join Free France, who crossed the Pyrenees at the risk of their lives, who paid for their audacity with a harsh internment who, finally, managed to be volunteer fighters for the Liberation.
Historical
In June 1940, after the collapse of the Allied Front, the Spanish organized the regrouping of foreign, French and civilian Allied soldiers at Miranda de Ebro, (near Burgos).
Created by Franco to intern the Spanish Republicans, with the help of the Nazis sent by Hitler during the Spanish Civil War, this camp includes about thirty barracks, with as many nationalities. The largest contingent were the French and Belgians, but there were English, Americans, Poles, and Jews of all nationalities. Many French people pretend to be French Canadians, under false names!
In 1941, the Armistice with France did not put an end to the arrival in Spain.
In 1942, the Miranda camp had about 5000 people. Life is very hard, deprivation, undernourishment and deplorable living conditions: water is regulated, light soup is the only dish of the day and dysentery called "Mirandite", scurvy and bedbugs are omnipresent.
In November 1942, the Germans landed in North Africa and invaded the free zone, the French then flocked to Spain. The areas of passage are Hendaye, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Ibardin, La Rhune, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, Le Somport, Le Portallet, Le Portillon, La Tour de Carol, Tabescan, Andorra via Puymorens, Col du Morena, Céret, Le Perthus, Cerbère via the Col des Balistres.
The large number of border crossings (from 1940 to 1944, more than 100,000 attempts with 35,000 successful) forced the Spanish to intern a majority of French people in the prisons of Irun, Pamplona, Huesca, Zaragoza, Barbastro, Lerida, Figueres, Girona and Barcelona, after a few days in border prisons where the search and identity took place. On 5 January 1943, the Poles went on hunger strike. After 7 days, the movement ended with... of the sick and its undernourished. But on 22 March, the Poles were sent to England, followed by the Belgians.
As the Spanish Government took a step back from the Axis, the Vichy Government, taking the French Red Cross delegation in Madrid on its own, put itself in contact with the Allies, who provided it with the means to help the French interned in the camps and prisons.
A distribution was made, men from 16 to 40 years old would be sent, within the limit of places, to Miranda.
Some were concentrated in fortress prisons: Figuerido, monasteries transformed into prisons: Totana, Palacio des Missiones in Barcelona, cellular prisons: Hellin, Bilbao, Logrono, Tarragona, Burgos. Barbastro. Zaragoza.
The youngest and the oldest, as well as some women, in hotels that had been disused since the Civil War, and guarded militarily: Almazan, Arnedillo, Burguete, Caldas de Malavelle, Molinar de Carranza, Murguis, Onteniente, Rocaillaura, Sobron, Salan de Cobras, Uberuaga de Ubilla, Valdeganga, Zarauz, Zumaya.
In February 1943, a first convoy of Frenchmen, including non-commissioned officers and officers, left Algeciras.
From the end of April, 8 convoys left Setubal (near Lisbon), then others left Malaga and in 1944, 21 from Gibraltar and Algeciras, towards Casablanca, from where a number headed for England.
From 1940 to 1945, 40,000 passed through Spain, 23 to 25,000 joined the Free French and Fighting Forces in North Africa and England. They were in all the fights, in all the landings, in the ranks of the Commandos, the Paratroopers, the Leclerc Division, the 1st Army, the air force or the navy. They are present everywhere! 12,000 to 15,000 of them lost their lives on the battlefields, the survivors were the first to free the internees and deportees from the Nazi camps...
This transfer through the Pyrenees, of this future Liberation Army, was carried out with the help of French resistance fighters and smugglers from the Pyrenees, at the risk of their lives. Bodies are still sleeping in the ice of the passes... More than 5,000 escapees were recaptured and deported to Germany, others perished in Spain, from disease, abuse or exhaustion...
But they all had an ideal: France... and to achieve this, they knew how to choose: to suffer in the camps and prisons, keeping in their hearts the hope of regaining their freedom, to join the Allied Armies and participate in the Liberation of the Fatherland. More than three-quarters died.
Let's not forget them!
Share: