tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1296812581212979823.post7282211109548119861..comments2024-01-08T10:16:34.686-08:00Comments on Engineer of Knowledge: From Housewife to French Resistance Hero, Berthe FraserEngineer of Knowledgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02179784871538454388noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1296812581212979823.post-3027065918587007912021-06-28T06:55:57.310-07:002021-06-28T06:55:57.310-07:00Bonjour,
Je souhaiterais aller me recueillir sur...Bonjour, <br /><br />Je souhaiterais aller me recueillir sur la tombe de Madame Fraser que j'ai connue il y a bien longtemps alors que j'étais enfant. Je crois me souvenir qu'elle est enterrée à Behagnies. Pourriez-vous me le confirmer ou sinon m'indiquer sa localisation. <br />Merci d'avance. <br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08568321177962714209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1296812581212979823.post-31410582795170711452021-01-07T00:36:18.211-08:002021-01-07T00:36:18.211-08:00Hi David
Did Berthe talk about her experiences
dur...Hi David<br />Did Berthe talk about her experiences<br />during the war<br />Thanks<br />Ashley AtkinsonAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10760654507217806526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1296812581212979823.post-48275871775363094222020-05-24T08:35:02.151-07:002020-05-24T08:35:02.151-07:00Je suis arrivé par hasard sur votre site, je reche...Je suis arrivé par hasard sur votre site, je recherchais quelques sources pour écrire un paragrphe sur Berthe Fraser pour un prochain bulletin de la Sté Archéo de Bapaume, petite ville limitrophe avec l'endroit ou est enterrée notre héroïne Berthe Fraser. Vous rendez la vraiment un hommage méritant à cette grande résistante qu'elle a pu être. Je ne manquerai de vous citer dans mes écrits. Merci à vousAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07839509400301575732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1296812581212979823.post-54540749050204828482011-08-11T08:27:27.662-07:002011-08-11T08:27:27.662-07:00I was reminded of Berthe Fraser when I heard of th...I was reminded of Berthe Fraser when I heard of the death of Nancy Wake earlier this month. She was known as the White Mouse and Berthe was named in the Yeo Thomas book The White Rabbit.<br /><br />I met Berthe on a number of occasions when I was an exchange student in 1946. I was one of the first exchange students after the war and I lived in the village of Vimy just outside Arras. I recall that Berthe Fraser kept a perfumery shop near the centre of Arras and was an active member of the Societe Franco Britannique,the organization that made the student exchanges possible. I have a photograph to prove it!! and was privileged to attend the 60th celebrations in Arras in 2006.David Mortlocknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1296812581212979823.post-12239461452353778442010-03-11T07:39:16.549-08:002010-03-11T07:39:16.549-08:00The family who owned the property I live on were c...The family who owned the property I live on were collaboratoirs, but on a small level. There was a lot of activity around here at the end of the war as the German SS pushed upwards to meet the Allied Invasion. That's when the resistance really kicked in with a number of spectacular train wrecks and British agents parachuted in to organize small groups. <br />For the most part the Resistance was led by the Communists but many people from many different political persuasions were part of it.<br />The Milice, the locals who collaborated as militant bands were especially brutal.<br />The German SS took reprisals to try to stop intimidate the resistance. The burning of the Chateau here was a small one. <br />The payback for collaborators was private. The peasant mentality is one of traditional distrust of police and the government. People don't talk. Sometimes it was a "hunting accident" 30 years later. A house fire.<br />I find Vichy money buried all over the place here. I have quite a collection as if someone was trying to dispose of all the evidence.<br /><br />This was the most prosperous modern farm before the war. The family prospered selling gas from their private tank which mysteriously was always full. After the war, they went on to become the "the kings of bulldozers"...but they destroyed themselves...the grandfather hung himself in the yard, their grapes died. The father and son became bitter business competitors in the same house. Finally, the father left his wife alone in the house where she died alone around 1990. <br />The son, who still was known as the king of bulldozers, built a huge modern house in the village. He tried to screw his sister out of her part of the heritage when the porperty was broken up.<br />The old father, who never really divorced his wife, resurfaced to claim his share...I think it was miniscule...1/40th, but he wanted the house for his 60 year old girlfriend, he was 94 at the time.<br />He died, we got the house, the son who tried to screw his sister...who was screwed literally by her father, the old bastard...got screwed in the end by a friendly Marchand de Vente...a sort of country real estate agent who manages these kind of deals for peasants. The son sold the house to us for a fraction of its real value because we offered him cash and paid the sister under the table....<br />The son is slowly succumbing to Alzheimers and the sister is our real friend. The agent is a true friend, he took a liking to us the first time we met because we were artists and musicians and could tune his dulcimer...<br /><br />It's interesting because the generation that lived the war is dying out and the silence around their lives and the histories is being chipped away. You realize that here we are only a generation from the advent of rural electricity. No one had a phone before the late 60's. The water came from wells.<br />The idyllic peasant reality of our urbanized dreams obscures the brutal life of labor, scheming, violence, blood and mud.microdothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01564820031343630871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1296812581212979823.post-31530176244147955062010-03-11T06:04:55.636-08:002010-03-11T06:04:55.636-08:00Hello Microdot,
Great addition to the piece. I wa...Hello Microdot,<br />Great addition to the piece. I was hoping that you would be able to pass on more information from the local perspective.<br /><br />Maybe you can do a posting on the resistance and retribution to the collaborators. I would love to hear more.Engineer of Knowledgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02179784871538454388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1296812581212979823.post-3531970399237623212010-03-10T13:47:38.205-08:002010-03-10T13:47:38.205-08:00Great story. There were a lot of women who played ...Great story. There were a lot of women who played a heroic role in the French Resistance.It's kind of strange living here and talking to people who were alive during the war. We have casually tried to find out who did what around here during the war. I am beginning to suspect that the property I now own was owned by a family who prospered.<br />There was a lot of resistance and the chateau in Badefols was a center. The family members whpo were caught were rounded up and sent to concentration camps near the end of the war.<br />They were betrayed. The Germans tried to destroy the 11th century chateau and set fire to it. It burned on the inside for 3 days, but the building remains, restored now.<br />My neighbor told me the story of when it was burned....he was a small boy, his father was mayor.<br />He said that everyone stopped because they heard a strange popping noise coming from the tower...<br />It was the slate tiles on the roof exploding from the heat...then the roof erupted in a column of flame. the war traumatized everyone and people don't speak of it too much, but scores with collaborators were settled, privately over the years.<br />Here in the country, people don't talk.microdothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01564820031343630871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1296812581212979823.post-56196087782324531502010-03-10T05:03:55.769-08:002010-03-10T05:03:55.769-08:00Excellent story, Engineer, and a learning experien...Excellent story, Engineer, and a learning experience for me, personally, as I never knew of Berthe Frase before your posting. I was struck [in the heart] on reading that TWICE she was betrayed to the Nazis. What on earth could the betrayer[s] be thinking to do such a thing? What motivates an individual to tell the dastardly occupying Nazis that a woman may be working against them? Beats the hell out of me how that could happen.<br /><br />Were I in Berthe Frase's place, I'd be at her side, working hard for my people, working to rid my land of scum like those!<br /><br />Thanks for the historical memory-jogging post, Engineer!mud_rakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04786611698569598023noreply@blogger.com