Civil and WWarII

[Jeffrey Crawley]

Having wandered over the Franco-Spanish border several time (both before and
after the present 'open-frontier' system came in) I wonder how difficult it
would have been without a guide in those trying times.

Certainly there were what are known as 'Rat Lines' organised through Holland,
Belgium and France used to smuggle escaped or evading Allied troops into Spain,
one running down to Bordeaux then Biarritz/Hendaye and over the border to San
Sebastian (the famed COMET group) and another on the Med side near Perpignan
run by a Irish priest.

If you were anti-nazi and fleeing Vichy control you were more than likely to
get sent straight back if caught, allied aircrew tended to end up in the
infamous Miranda concentration camp.

One important thing about Portugal was that there were direct transport links
from Lisbon to the USA - if you could get the papers and had the money.

And, in answer to another email off list, Stalin had nothing to do with the
democratically elected socialist government of 1931, like Hilter he muscled in
later and his apparatchiks made just as big a fist of things as the Falangists.

By the way, thanks very much for the Christmas tree you send every year, we
still appreciate it and make a big thing of its dressing and illumination.

Jeffrey

Quoting Karen Willmus <willmusaRUNESTONE.NET>:

> If someone were to be
> escorted by Basques over the mountains, would it have been reasonable to
> imagine some of them traveled along the route to get to Portugal?




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