Raymond Malard, her son, testifies: « René Sénéchal [a member of the network] came twice a month, each time with about twenty people. They arrived at our house at night by crossing the demarcation line on foot. We had a dog that slept in the kitchen. When he started to growl, my mother would say: « It’s Sénéchal who’s coming. « A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. The arrivals would go into the ballroom and soup would be brought to them. They slept there, on mattresses that had been used by the Alsatians a few months earlier. They left the next morning. I don’t know how Sénéchal got our address, but he would come to our house in complete confidence.
Noëla Malard.
German provocations on the demarcation line
« Arriving on the Villefranche [de-Lonchat] road, we were approaching the roadblock ‘at the Carsac post’ when we saw a German patrol consisting of two men. Immediately they called out to us in German […]. I answered them in German, which seemed to surprise them, and asked them what they wanted. They told me that we had no right to pass along this road, which was in the occupied zone, and that the sign had been… torn down, which they said must be in a place they vaguely pointed out. […] As [one of the two] continued to be on familiar terms with me, I asked him if he knew who he was dealing with and that he only had to be polite to me. […] He said to me: ‘Even if you are the relative of the Emperor of China, I don’t care. Report of the Brigadier
chief of customs at the Saint-Rémy-sur-Lidoire post, October 1940.
The beginnings of Fernande Escudié’s activity as a border-crosser, a tobacconist in Montpon
« My older brother, Gaston, lived in Bordeaux. He worked in the branch of a luxury fabric shop that belonged to a Jewish owner. The main shop was in Paris. In the autumn of 1940, my brother asked me to take the manager to the free zone. The man arrived one day with a fishing rod and a bag to give the impression that he was a Jew. I asked for help from a military friend who lived in Mussidan, but whose parents lived in Saint-Barthélémy-de-Bellegarde. He was riding a motorbike and knew perfectly well the places to cross the line at night in Saint-Barthélémy-de-Bellegarde. The crossing was carried out without any problem. Then my brother asked me if I could get other Jews through.