A Schoolteacher at Périgueux — Welcoming the Exodus

Our Périgueux schoolteacher is a composite figure, representative of the inhabitants of the South-West confronted with the flood of the exodus. Périgueux, sub-prefecture of the Dordogne with about 35,000 inhabitants, sees some 150,000 refugees pour in over three weeks — from the North, from Belgium, from Paris. Whole families sleep in schools, churches, gymnasiums.

The schoolteacher, like many local teachers and civil servants, finds herself on the front line of reception: distributing blankets and soup, finding housing, directing families to the surrounding farms. Resources are lacking, housing and food create tensions, but spontaneous solidarity is real.

The decision, on an individual scale, is concrete and moral: open her own house to a refugee family, at the risk of cramped quarters and shortage, or protect herself by limiting her aid to collective action. Most of the refugees are women, children and the elderly, the men being mobilised or prisoners. This burden weighs on poorly resourced communes. It is the daily dilemma of millions of French in the host regions during the summer of 1940.