Love and War in the Pyrenees

I was introduced to the writing of Rosemary Bailey when I read ‘Life In A Postcard’ the account of her life in the Pyrenees, her experiences of life in a mountain village, the restoration of a ruined monastery where she now lives with her husband Barry Miles, and the history of the monks who once lived there.

This latest book of Bailey’s ‘Love and War in the Pyrenees’ a story of Courage, Fear and Hope, 1939-1944 is a moving account of the region during World War Two. As I read this book I realised that there was much I didn’t know and more that the French did not want Bailey to find out about them during the Occupation, the real role of the Resistance, the Maquis, the level of collaboration, the concentration camps in the Pyrenees and the treatment of Jews and other refugees. Few in Southern France even now are willing to admit the level of outright acceptance of the German occupation, of the fascist ideals of the Vichy government and the degree of collaboration, passive or active, that went on throughout the war years.

This is a story of love and deprivation. Rosemary and her husband bought the abbey at Corbiac in the Pyrénées-Orientales many years ago. Fifty years before them the dwelling was lived in by Pierre and Amélie, a newly married couple who lived there at the start of the Second World War. The daughter of P and A heard about Bailey and her husband’s story in renovating the abbey and gave them a faded blue folder of love letters between her parents. These letters form the backdrop of this extraordinary book, a thorough and thought-provoking and at times deeply disturbing account of the impact of the 2nd World War on the villages and towns of the Pyrenees. The book is a triumph of historical reconstruction and leaves me profoundly disturbed about the lack of understanding I had about this virtually hidden past of the Vichy government in unoccupied France.

I urge you to read this.