Searching for the Dutch-Paris Escape Line
August 15th marks the 75th anniversary of the Allied Landings in southern France on the beaches of Provence, known as Operation Dragoon. These are not as well remembered as the Allied Landings in Normandy a couple months earlier. But the people who lived there and the German troops and their collaborators who were still in control of southern France certainly noticed the event.
The maquis (military Resistance) sprang into action and the Pyrenees were mostly liberated in the next seven days. Dutch-Paris was still operating in the area, working to get men into Spain. A few of those fugitives chose to stay in France, joined the Secret Army and helped liberate the Pyrenees.
In Toulouse, a mob of citizens stormed the prison of St Michel on August 19 and released all the political prisoners being held there. This was good news for a Dutch-Paris courier who lived in Toulouse and had been arrested there because of her connection with Dutch-Paris on June 22. The Gestapo had interrogated her about Dutch-Paris seven times and had stripped her apartment of most valuables, but she had not yet been deported. Toulouse was liberated the next day, August 20.
Over in the French Alps, Annecy was liberated on the same day as the political prisoners in Toulouse, August 19. The entire region along the Swiss border convulsed with fighting between resisters and the Germans and their collaborators that often took the form of atrocities perpetrated on civilians in an attempt to discourage the maquis. Once the American Army showed up, however, the Germans began to retreat. Lyon was liberated on August 24. For many civilians in the region, however, the joy of liberation was bittersweet. It was only after the Germans retreated that they could begin to count their losses.
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