The Foreign Volunteers

The French army of 1940 counted in its ranks many foreign volunteer enlistees: anti-fascist refugees, Spanish republicans who had fled Franco, Jews who had fled Nazism, stateless persons, immigrants. Many had enlisted (often in the Foreign Legion or marching regiments) to fight Nazi Germany, out of conviction or out of gratitude towards their host country. You are one of them.

In the rout, you face a particularly perilous fate. For you, falling into German hands would mean, as an anti-fascist, a Jew or a "stateless person", treatment far worse than that reserved for ordinary prisoners. To continue the fight to the end, then try to flee abroad (England, overseas) to escape capture. To blend into the civilian population by getting rid of your uniform. Or to surrender with the other soldiers, hoping for prisoner-of-war status.

For these volunteers who had come to fight Nazism, defeat was a direct and personal threat. Their commitment, often forgotten, recalls the international dimension of the struggle against the Axis and the courage of those who fought for a homeland that was not theirs by birth.