Within the titanic clash of World War II, the Resistance was actually a rather small world. Only a fraction of the European population was willing to risk their necks to oppose the Nazis, or had the opportunity to do so. And most of those who did operated within local groups in a local area. Granted, that “local” might be on both sides of a border, but it was still circumscribed.
Dutch-Paris was different from most resistance groups because it was neither local nor specific to any one, army, nation, political party or church. It was not only international in its scope but also transnational in its attitude and personnel.

As a result, Dutch-Paris got involved in three of the most famous incidents of the war: the Engelandspiel (aka Operation North Pole); the “Great Escape” from Stalag Luft III (the one from the 1963 movie); and the escape of POWs from the maximum security POW prison at Colditz. Their involvement was minor, although critical. They smuggled men who had escaped in all three events to Spain. Why Dutch-Paris? The Allied officers in charge of such things in Switzerland considered Dutch-Paris to be the safest and most secure route to Spain. Not that there were many other options.

Let’s start with the Engelandspiel. This was a German intelligence coup in which they caught Dutch secret agents as they parachuted into the country without the British catching on. Finally, two Dutchmen escaped from a prison in Haaren (NL), made it back to England and put a stop to the charade. There is plenty to read on the Engelandspiel if you want details. In this post we’ll just talk about Dutch-Paris’s part in the story.

It starts in the French city of Annecy close to the Swiss border in November 1943.  The two escaped Dutch agents – Piet Dourlein and Benny Ubbink – were hiding in the upstairs bedroom of a local man who lived in one of the small streets in the town. The local man was guarding the door with a hatchet because the town was full of angry French Miliciens, come by the truckload to wreck vengeance for the resistance killing of a collaborator. The assassination had nothing to do with Dutch-Paris. It was just bad timing.

One of the leaders of Dutch-Paris had also arrived in Dutch-Paris that day with seven fugitives including a couple of Czechs and an Englishman and an order to get the two Dutchmen to England as soon as possible. A second leader of Dutch-Paris also arrived in town that day from points north. They rendezvoused in the local man’s home. One of them went out to do some shopping for the fugitives and came back with cheese, bread, apples and a small piece of butter. He divided it all up as provisions for the fugitives for the train journey to Toulouse.

Because the Milice bent on vengeance in the streets of the city made the situation considerably more dangerous than usual, the resisters decided to ask the fugitives if they wanted to leave that night or risk hiding another night in Annecy. The Czechs argued that the Milice were sure to be watching the train station, but in the end they all slunk through the darkened streets and onto the night train to Lyon. There they transferred to a train to Toulouse.

In Toulouse, Dutch-Paris put Ubbink and Dourlein in a convoy of 29 men, including Turks, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Canadians, Americans and Englishmen. They most probably took a combination of local trains and busses to a hamlet in the foothills of the Pyrenees before walking on foot over a few mountains to the Spanish village of Canejan. According to one of the Dutchmen on that convoy, they departed Toulouse on 26 November 1943 and arrived in Spain on 1 December 1943. They lost two men during the trek over the Pyrenees. Three others were shot as spies in Gibraltar or England. The Dutch agents who put an end to the Engelandspiel, however, were safely delivered back to London.