ed. katakrak El Cirujano y el Pastor

Features ed. katakrak el cirujano y el pastor

Resistance to Nazism in the Irati Jungle

In the middle of World War II, the muga became, with its northern slope controlled by French fascists and Nazi police detachments, a dangerous border territory. Between 1940 and 1944, the famous Red Comète managed to evacuate 878 Allied pilots across the Bidasoa. But there is another network, less known, that managed to save more than a hundred persecuted by the Reich using a route through the Pyrenees, between the Aezkoa valley and Lower Navarra. Between 1942 and 1943, the large beech forest of the Irati Forest, between Vichy France and Franco's Spain, became the clandestine passage for those escaping war and tyranny towards England.

Charles Schepens, alias Monsieur Pérot, eventually a famous Belgian ophthalmologist living in Boston, and Jean Sarochar, alias Manech, a World War I veteran and pastor of Mendive, were the two most prominent figures of the Belgian Zéro network that He was in charge, along with a large network of accomplices, of bringing to fruition the escape of more than a hundred refugees. Schepens, as an ingenious organizing head, and Sarochar, as an intrepid Mugalari storyteller, outwitted the collaborationist authorities and the Gestapo for a year and a half, thanks to the cover provided by the rescue of a ruinous logging company, which extracted logs from the Irati, that were transported by cable car, for train sleepers. They miraculously survived, becoming mythical characters in those hidden valleys—a mix of Roldán and Martin-Txiki—and were honored in their time for their exploits as members of the Resistance. His story, however, had not been told until now, exhaustively and in detail.

This exciting book of history, with traces of a spy novel, documented with rigor, erudition and a lot of field work, immerses us in the time and place with extraordinary vividness: it is an authentic exercise in democratic memory . It places us in a space and time of heroism and misfortune, starring anonymous heroes of a piece who, together with their necessary communities of collaborators, should be remembered.

Features:

• Author Meg Ostrum
• Spanish language
• Pages 22
• Size 14 x 21 cm
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• ISBN 978-84-16946-87-7