Val d'Isere during WW2

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I just stumbled across this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lix_Kir

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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@boredsurfin, looks like they've always been doing secret squirrel stuff in and around Salisbury. I recall seeing a great documentary about it. Lots of parts being made in garages etc. Apparently the Spitfire was a right swine to make because of the thin wings. Must say that I like the alleged philosophy behind the ME109 - put the biggest possible engine in the smallest possible plane

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Certainly, that quotation doesn't actually state that that was why the piste was so named.

After all it is free

Village of Secrets by Caroline Moorehead is an excellent but sad book about the main network for smuggling French Jewish children to Switzerland . This is Vichy France's dirty secret that no one addresses.
Over the Col de Madeleine into the Maurienne, the few Resistance ( and Flambeau the hero dog) were so active that the Nazis shelled Lanslevillard ( Val Cenis) to the ground.

This is a scan of an 1820 map

https://ibb.co/3TfVtnL

Coming back to the role of the French in the Holocaust it is interesting to note that the Vichy govt. demanded that local authorities in Grenoble round up jews for transportation to concentration camps but following the occupation of Grenoble by the Italian army they were prevented from doing this by the Italian authorities. It should be noted that there were also large protests by the Grenoblois against the round-ups, 138 people from the Isere are recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel.

Returning to the BBC article I think they are blowing this into something it is not. As the article says, Val d'Isere, with an army presence wasn't the best hiding place for a jewish refugee so it might be that only Dr Frédéric Pétri knew Huguette's real identity and perhaps no-one in the town knows the story. Huguette was hardly in a hurry post-war to dash back to see her savoir leaving it to 1970 to return. The mayor probably didn't want to get ambushed by some BBC journalist talking about something he maybe has no idea about.

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I've been doing some research on the local Maquis de l'Oisans, interesting stuff, mainly in 1944.

https://maquisdeloisans.fr/
Not updated for many years but reading what is there, following links, etc. is interesting.

https://maquisdeloisans.fr/Doc/LFM%20light.pdf
Extract from the book Le France des Maquis” the chapter “Le combat de Grandes-Rousses”

https://www.miages-djebels.org/IMG/pdf/brochuremaquis_Oisans.pdf
Brochure Maquis de d'Oisans including information on the maquis hospital at Alpe D'huez

http://chapelles.provence.free.fr/lemonetierlelautaret.html
Col de Lauteret, VIllar-d’Arêne, Tunnel du Chambon and Bourg d’Oisans. The German 157th retreated from Briancon to Grenoble in August 1944 causing terror along their route.

http://d-d.natanson.pagesperso-orange.fr/english_lucien.htm
More on Bourg d’Oisans from the ancestor of some of the victims (in English).

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Thank you @Claude B, @davidof, @cstreat, for the references. All very interesting reading. I feel like I need to read more about this time in the Alps.

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I found this very interesting, the Vercors. Original footage. In french but quite simple to understand.

http://youtube.com/v/zoq7QREIgB8

@Claude B, thanks

You know it makes sense.

This lady was on the world at 1 today (near the end of the program, right before they started discussing trees). I only caught the end so I don’t know if there was more information or this interview just covered what is in the thread already.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

The story featured in The Times today.

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The BBC article on Dr Pétri sheltering a Jewish girl was fascinating and also sad that there seems to be no acknowledgement after the war.
This period split communities and the country in two. That is hard to forget and hard to talk about. The family of my wife had a huge (400 workers) factory that was turned over to the German army during the occupation for the production of bits of uniform or towels. You didn’t have a choice. If you said no, they took it anyway and shot you. But this was not collaboration, but rather the appropriation of industry. Collaboration was far more sinister and lead amongst other things, to mass deportation of the Jewish population which is impossible to dismiss or forget.
Megève was a temporary haven for Jewish refugees during the war.

There seem to be few or no records kept by the French on this period; perhaps understandably.

Perhaps one place to look for more records on this period would be the archives of the SOE (Special Operations Executive.) They reported in to MI6 (notably amongst others to a one Mr Kim Philby!!) and had agents spread across the continent.
In total, there were between 450 and 500 SOE agents throughout France, 40 of whom were women. SOE operated throughout the Alps, fighting with the Partisans, from Yugoslavia (with Tito’s Partidsans) through to France. While supplying arms and financial support to the Maquis, there was some reticence about aiding the Communist partisans.

Aside from general disruption to infrastructure, (a list of SOE operations can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Operations_Executive#Operations) the SOE helped escaped POW’s and downed airmen return home through the network of resistance fighters and Partisans throughout the alps. There were routes down through Yugoslavia, and out from Split, over to Bari (which was by then in the hands of the Allies) and home via Malta and/or Gibraltar. The other route was west through the Italian and Swiss alps, and across Southern France and over the Pyrenees.
I cant find any reference to Val D’Isere in the SOE section in the National Archives but I haven’t done anything near an exhaustive search.
The main Maquis concentration in the region was South West of Grenoble in the Massif du Vercours. Numbering around 4000, they suffered terribly in the Vermacht offensive of July 1944.

I skied down Germain Mattis several times last week and stopped to spare a thought for the brave young ski instructor.

Definitely worth more research.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Old Boy, welcome to snowHeads

and thanks for a very interesting and impressive first post.

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@Old Boy, you mention Megeve and I related above a reference I found to St Gervais (next valley) also being a refuge for French Jews.

As far as I can tell, it was because during the war the Italians occupied the strip of France adjacent to their border when the Germans invaded the rest of France. Because Germany and Italy were on the same side travel between the zones was relatively unrestricted, but once in the Italian zone Jews weren't hunted out as they were elsewhere in occupied France, although they needed to be in hiding. No doubt there would also have been German soldiers around but they didn't have the authority to conduct house-to-house searches as they would have done in German-controlled France. That doesn't though take anything away from the bravery of locals who hid significant numbers of Jewish refugees and organised their onward escape through mountain paths to neutral Swizerland.

Presumably the same route would have been used by escaped prisoners of war and others.

However as you point out definitive information is hard to find (at least on google!) since the French find it a difficult bit of their history to discuss in detail.

Help!!

Val d'Isere during WW2

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