The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2010

24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 these passes and failed each time, fueling their fury and frustration. As the Allies advanced in south- ern France in July 1944, the plan was for the 7th Army to join up with the Resistance at Vercor. On a cer- tain day British planes were to land, carrying arms to the French holed up there. Fog in London pre- vented the planes from flying, but somehow the Germans learned about the plan and painted their own planes in British col- ors. When they arrived to French cheers, the Nazis jumped out of their planes and massacred everyone in sight, women and children included. We visited the site and the village ruins, including the memorial museum and the graves of those killed, a grisly reminder of what hap- pened that tragic day. Another close friend I’d met at the 60th-anniversary ceremony, Jean-Claude Cottet, had a similarly dramatic story to tell about his father, Joachim, who had died in 2002. Joachim lived in the village of Habere-Poche, now a beautiful ski resort an hour east of Geneva. In 1943, 40 youngsters, almost all in their teens, were working in the Resistance. Figuring that the Germans were 25 miles away in An- nemasse, the group decided to get together on Christmas Eve for a party in the village chateau. Tragi- cally, a Vichy traitor had infiltrated their ranks and tipped off the Germans, who murdered 35 of the young men, then burned down the chateau. The remaining five feigned death and escaped, but were ar- rested the next day. I was asked to lay a wreath on the beautiful memorial built on the ruins of the house, where the victims’ names and ages were engraved. Joachim Cottet was one of the five survivors who was captured the next day. He was sent to a series of concen- tration camps, performing hard labor under atrocious conditions. All four of his comrades died there, leaving him the sole survivor of the Habere-Poche massacre to make it to Dachau. At a ceremony held in my honor at the mayor’s office, I met several other veterans with equally grim stories. Among them was Fernand Klein, who had been deco- rated for his role in the Resistance. He had escaped five times from the Nazis before ending up in Dachau. We also met Mme. Néplaz-Bouvet, an impressive lady who is president of a French foundation that preserves the memories of those who were deported. I spoke to the group about our liberation of Dachau, which was a very moving event. One of the former Dachau internees at the ceremony, Walter Bassen, gave me a book by another former de- tainee, Paul Bermond, describing the final death march toward the Tyrol region. The French prisoners huddled together as the remaining Nazis tried to hide the evidence of their atrocities by driving them past Munich into the Alps. As the Allies approached, the German guards began to discard their uniforms and put on civilian clothes, which the prisoners had been pushing in rude carts. As soon as most of the guards disappeared, the French prisoners all left the march and occupied local homes until the Amer- icans arrived the next day. Later, the Cottets arranged for me to speak to 50 F O C U S As the only American veteran from the liberation of Dachau my hosts had ever met, I was treated royally.