Cruel Crossing: Escaping Hitler Across the Pyrenees

The secret history of the WW2 escape route through the Pyrenees from France to Spain: personal stories of endurance, betrayal and remarkable bravery.

- Midnight scrambles across rooftops to flee the Gestapo

- Bayonets jabbed into haystacks and suspicious ticket inspectors

- Nazi collaboration and Resistance betrayals

- Gadgetry, burning Lancasters and evil SS officers

- Doomed love affairs and heroic self-sacrifice

Everything you would expect of a tale of wartime escape and evasion is here in this collection of stories and reminiscence from the Chemin de Libertie — the perilous climb through the Pyrenees used by men, women and children escaping Occupied France to Spain. Bringing history alive, Ed undertakes the walk to experience some of the hardship of the wartime refugees, finding himself with fellow pilgrims each with their own personal reasons for commemorating an extraordinary and desperately moving aspect of WW2. The walk, interviews with the few remaining survivors, and previously unseen primary source material, combine into a hugely accessible, poignant dramatic and inspiring history.

• Author
• Edward Stourton

• Format
• paperback

• Pages
• 304

• Publisher
• Doubleday UK

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9780857520524

• Settings
• Pyrenees

• Genres
• history, spain, france

• Release date
• 2013