THE STRANGER IN MY HOME
  • Home
  • Vignettes
    • Encounters
    • Events
    • Experiences
    • Epiphanies
  • Stories
  • Fables
  • Translations
  • Miscellany
  • Now/Then

now  /  then

blogs and blends

A Prisoner of War

8/16/2018

0 Comments

 
On a pleasant summer day, in a charming little hotel on Ulitsa Stremyannaya in Saint Petersburg, I met Philippe and Elvira Bonnenfant. I was sipping a second espresso after breakfast in the hotel café when Elvira asked if she could join my table. Elvira is from Kyrgyzstan, at one time a part of USSR. Philippe is a Frenchman, who represented an international seeds company in Eastern Europe. Now they both live in Russia. They are a charming couple and I believe we will stay in touch.
 
I said to Philippe that he must have had an interesting life, moving from western Europe to the USSR and then living through the turbulent transition from the communist behemoth to the quick-changing Russian Federation. He modestly replied that his life indeed hadn’t been dull, but it was nothing compared to that of his father, Roger Bonnenfant. Intrigued, I wanted to hear the story of his father. It was a truly a strange story and a heart-warming one.
Picture
Roger was only 22 when patriotic fervor made him join the French army. With a resurgent Germany next door, there was fearful anticipation hardly two years later. Hitler launched his invasion of western Europe in May 1940. Just six weeks later France fell. On June 22 the French surrendered and signed an armistice. Roger was taken a prisoner of war.

Picture
With hundreds of other POW’s he was shipped to Germany, to serve the German industrial war machine. Roger was sent to Heidenheim an der Brenz, a town in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, a prison camp high up in the Swabian mountains near Stuttgart. Six days in the week he would be taken in a van with other prisoners twenty miles south, to work in a machine tools factory in Ulm.
 
It was in Ulm that he met Gerhard Schneider, a supervisor in the factory. Gerhard was an unusual man himself. He was a world-class athlete, who had survived despite his open contempt for the Nazis only because of his legendary reputation as a ski champion. His youthful idealism had prompted him once to visit the emerging socialist paradise of USSR, where he had been interrogated and detained on suspicion, but he had escaped. Incredibly, he would hide himself during the day and ski at night to elude the Russian authorities and reach freedom.
 
Gerhard treated Roger kindly and got to know him better. On the excuse that he needed a worker to do some chores in his home, he even succeeded in getting Roger to come to his house periodically and meet his wife, Emilia. The couple took pity on Roger and hatched an incredible plan. A plan for Roger to escape.

Picture
They took Roger’s measurements and had some rustic German-style clothes made for him. Roger would not survive on the roads for a day in the prisoner’s uniform that he was required to don day and night. Roger did not know a word of German earlier. They tutored him in common German words, so that he could answer strangers’ questions without arousing suspicion. In contravention of wartime rules, they fed Roger wholesome food, so he could regain his health for the tough adventure. He had already lost considerable weight on a prisoner’s meager diet. It also meant he had to make his escape attempt soon, before he became ill or more feeble for lack of nutrition.
 
Roger did not have many choices. The Reich had gobbled up large parts of Europe, including his country. He could not go home. His only chance was to reach neutral Switzerland. His plan, hatched with advice from Gerhard and Emilia, was to reach the southernmost town of Konstanz, on the border of Lake Constance, and then try to reach Basel across the border.

Picture
​He started off from Heidenheim on a moonless night. He shed his prison garbs, wore the outfit the Schneiders had suggested and carried the other set of clothes and some rations they had given in a modest bag. It was a long, arduous trek on unfamiliar roads, with the danger of being reported or caught at every turn. He had to look nondescript, avoid attention and buy food with the money Gerhard had given him only when he was insufferably hungry. Once, almost within sight of Konstanz, somebody reported him as suspicious and the local police detained him for a night, but he was able to escape before morning and further interrogation.
 
Once in Basel, he had no way to inform the Schneiders of the success of their common plan. Three years later, when the war ended, Roger was finally able to do the two things he had long yearned to do: tell Gerhard and Emilia that he had survived and return home to Paris. In five months, he was able to do more. He arrived in Ulm and hugged Gerhard and Emilia.
 
For years after that the Bonnenfants – for Roger had married and had his first child, Philippe – always visited Germany for their vacation and the Schneiders in turn visited France for holidays. Philippe was very young when he first saw Ulm, but he remembers being told that his first word as a baby was a German word rather than French. The two families remained closer than blood relations, and the children grew up as virtual cousins.
 
I had to agree with Philippe that his father had had a more exciting life, fulfilling as well as exciting.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Manish Nandy

    Writer, Speaker, Consultant
    Earlier: Diplomat, Executive


    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed


    Categories

    All

Proudly powered by Weebly
© Manish Nandy 2015  The Stranger in My Home