Wednesday, December 13, 2006, the blog devoted to the resistance in the Allier
"On 1 March 1941, a guard tells me to prepare myself because I 'll leave. A convoy of about 250 internees is formed. We reach the camp of Saint Germain les Belles where we meet another convoy of internees. The police make us get into another train. None of them wants to tell us where we go. The train takes us to Port-Vendres. A ship carrying sheep, Djebel Nadar, waiting for us.
"To board, we spend between two rows of GMR It is always impossible to know our destination.
"We understand, two days after landing in Algiers, that our journey is not over. It takes us directly by train in Blida, which is the terminus of the voyage. To continue, we are herded into cattle cars (the infamous 8 horses, 40 men). The train, pulled by two machines because of the rugged terrain, plunges into southern Algeria. Finally, on March 4, we disembark at the station in Djelfa.
" There, a strong ahead. Our captors were so rushed that nothing is ready. The rooms are empty. There is nothing to eat and we sleep on the cement. As welcome, the commander told us he has our skin.
"Soon after comes a second convoy, there is more room to accommodate them. The newcomers are forced to sleep under makeshift marabouts. The most valid of us are sent south of the city to build a camp surrounded by barbed wire. At this time of year, it is not good because it rains a lot. We stay in groups of six sub marabouts and as of course we do not have much to eat. We receive little mail, it is controlled in Algiers and in Djelfa.
"One day, we receive the visit of a general, and for this visit, we set up a delegation to him our concerns. When he sees our state and our delegates meeting, he announced: "We'll get there, and where you go, you will be better! "
" Indeed, April 19, we sent off to the south of Oran. The start is on Friday evening, we travel for three days and not eat Twice on Saturday, nothing on Sunday afternoon, we are entitled to an egg, two sardines and a small piece of bread. On Sunday evening, we find the station in Blida. Our train takes the route to Morocco. In Sidi-Bel-Abbes, where we stop, we get royally half a plate of lentils with a piece of bread.
"Then the train leaves. We finally arrived at a small station: "Everybody down! "
" It is one o'clock in the afternoon, we are hungry.
"Two lieutenants we are waiting on the dock, but we're not there yet, our destination is the camp of Bossuet. It is 17 kilometers from the railway station in the mountains (1500 m). We arrived about 19 hours. A meal is served us, the same as soldiers.
"In the rooms where we enter, we find bed frames with four seats. They turn out full of bugs, it is impossible to sleep. Once it is good, we slept outside. Our situation has improved slightly.
"Of the 500 that we are, 480 are communists. They are from all regions of France, of all walks of life: workers, peasants, workers, people middle class and many intellectuals.
"For example, the group of 11 Bourbonnais we are, we have three teachers: Jacques GUILLAUMIN Vichy, Pierre and André Valignat FOR Montluçon. My room is chief Roger Garaudy, a professor of philosophy at the Lycee Lapeyrouse in Albi. There are also 5 officers. They do not wear their stripes but all the decorations they have gained during the First World War.
"Our lives are not as harsh as Djelfa which are locked veterans of the International Brigades and the English Republican Army. There will be many deaths among them.
"A Bossuet, we have relatively few deaths, yet we have nothing to look after ourselves. The patients are lying in the room. However, we have a physician and surgeon among the detainees but for lack of medicines, they can do nothing to cure them. Comrade Elijah Augustine (Secretary of the Communist Federation of Tarn) is very ill, he died September 16, 1941, the day of his birthday.
"Sick, I'm lucky, with two other comrades, to be transferred to the hospital of Oran. Again, no medicine to heal us but we sleep in a bed and food is better, more abundant.
"Finally, 8 November 1942, came the Allied landing. The new authorities begin to liberate us, little by little.
"First out are the 27 Communist deputies imprisoned in Algiers. They will, in turn, struggle to obtain our release. I leave Bossuet among the last, we are in May 1943.
"I do not fall immediately in France and for good reason: there is no communication between the Germans occupied France and Algeria.
"After a year working in a club for American officers, I am committed for the duration of the war. I think go and fight in France with friends. In fact, they send me in an artillery regiment in Tlemcen.
"From there, I then go to Constantine, in a section of nurses in Setif and I am assigned to the Military Hospital where I want the input registers.
"It lasts until the day the commander of the hospital comes and asks us to inform if yad'anciens political detainees during care : He wants them to return to France. I showed him my notes and certificate.
"I go where I come then to Algiers December 10, 1944. I get on the Sidi Brahim December 25.
"After three days at sea, I landed in France and I get home, Dec. 31, after an absence of nearly four years."
It is worth recalling that the conditions of hygiene, with daily repressive measures, were of another century, let us not forget to remember also that identified more than 50 dead in Djelfa. [1]
[1] Paul CHAUPIN la déportation en Algérie
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