Map of the Cévennes range
October 1944





The Cévennes range, where we were in hiding, was difficult to access for the occupying Germans and their minions—the French equivalent of the German Gestapo, the Vichy government's Milice, made up of the dregs of civil society—thugs doing the bidding of the occupying Germans.

Miliciens would, without a doubt, have been just as zealous under Communists, had a leftist dictatorship been the repressive power in France.

The Cévennes, "un pays rude"—a rough place, had become an ideal refuge for hundreds of young French-men attempting to avoid being shipped to Germany in order to serve the "Master Race" as forced laborers under a system known in France as STO, "Service du Travail Obligatoire"

The hills about were full of armed Partisan groups, "maquisards," were divided into competing left-wing FTPF (Francs Tireurs Partisans Français) and non-left wing A.S. (Armée Secréte).