Towards Spain

It you follow your nose through this shot, you come to the Spanish border. I have only done it once and it is a hard walk. There are many mountain paths to take you there, some more accessible than others. Those paths were used frequently during the Second World War to smuggle English airmen and others to safety. The routes were monitored by the Germans but local knowledge usually meant that those patrols could be avoided. An estimated 1,500 Allied soldiers and airmen were among the number of escapees, but a far greater number of French people made the perilous journey over the rugged border mountain range. Estimates range between 30,000 and 100,000, among them many Jews who would otherwise have ended up in the death camps.
The actual mountain crossings themselves were often deadly ordeals. The foreign and Jewish refugees were usually at the end of their tether, malnourished and poorly dressed, before they set off on what they hoped would be the last leg of their journey, and there are some grim tales of what went on in the mountains. Some of the passeurs (guides) were brave idealists, but many more were callous mercenaries who would even resort to shooting their weaker charges if their slowness endangered the lives of the rest of the party.