A silence, our heads are bowed, a prayer from the Mayor. In turn the boys read out the list of the fallen sons of the Great War, perhaps a dozen names from those awful days. This would have been a village of around a hundred people.
Book Club: Secret Agent, Unsung Hero: The Valour of Bruce Dowding. This biography, researched over decades, is written by Bruce’s nephew, Peter, to honour Bruce and the millions who gave their lives for our safety.
Historic Perpignan, the colourful mix of old and new, chic and shabby, trendy boutiques, narrow, cobbled streets and small intimate bistros, was also a pivotal location in supporting the British and Allied war effort.
Rivesaltes. So handy for the railway. Destination: Auschwitz, via Drancy.
Walter Benjamin has a plaque dedicated to him in Banyuls-sur-Mer.
It is so very important that we never allow this to happen again.
Only fragments survive to witness the passage of more than 60,000 people interned in the Camp of Rivesaltes between 1942 and 1966.
The war is nearing it’s end. The Germans occupying France are on edge and expecting the Allied Invasion at any time.
The Comet line, so named because of the speed needed to whisk stranded airmen down through occupied France to safety, helped hundreds of allied soldiers and airmen to escape from occupied France.
During the Second World War, resistance movements in the Pyrenees-Orientales helped hundreds of refugees, allied soldiers and airmen to escape from occupied France across the border into Spain.