If you’ve seen the photos of Dutch-Paris fugitives crossing the Pyrenees into Spain in my book or on the WW2TV talk, you may be wondering why on earth those young men are standing in snow up to their knees way up in the mountains without so much as a warm hat let alone a decent coat or rugged footwear.

The answer is that all of them had to travel through cities on the regular trains to get to the mountains while looking like they weren’t actually going anywhere far from their home for any length of time. Young men in hiking gear heading toward the Spanish border would have been an automatic red flag for any police officer, gendarme, Milicien or German soldier in any train, train station or village. It just wasn’t safe to dress appropriately for the mountains on the way to the mountains. Nor was it possible to buy a pair of boots in the foothills. Heck, it was hard to buy any time of footwear with leather soles anywhere in France. Most people were clomping around on wooden soles.

Did being dressed for the city make it harder to walk through blizzards in the mountains? Absolutely. Did fugitives suffer from frost bite? Yes, many of them did. Some fugitives, although none from Dutch-Paris, died of exposure in the Pyrenees while trying to get to Spain.

There was also the constant danger of being caught by the authorities and being punished for attempting to cross the border illegally. For Jews caught by Germans, that meant being deported to concentration camps. Getting to Spain by walking over the Pyrenees was a difficult and dangerous journey. Followed by potential problems with the Spanish authorities. After that many of the young men who did it intended to join an army so that the other side could shoot at them.

Crossing the Pyrenees wasn’t a fun adventure. It took real determination and/or desperation to even attempt it.