The notebook of Jean Ramonat
From his departure for Germany in early 1943 to his return to France in May 1945.
A few months after he came home, my grandfather set down on paper his two years in Germany. Here is his notebook, page by page, with an English translation and a few notes to place his account in history.
Read the story of his time in Germany · Follow his journey on the map
Notebook pages
Translation
Historical notes
Mr. Jean Ramonat
Born March 14, 1923 in Épernay (Marne). Living in Bobigny, 37 rue de Lille (Seine).
Year 1943
January 1
Last holiday spent with the family under the German occupation.
January 7
Got the summons to go for the medical before leaving for Germany. But I was sick at that moment, which held me up a bit and I made the most of staying a good month longer in France with my parents, still under the German occupation.
February 2
This time I was found fit at the medical to leave for Germany, bound for Hamburg a few days later.
February 8
Goodbyes to my boss and to a few pals. At the end of that day, goodbyes to the whole family in Bondy.
February 9
Day set for my departure but the train was full. Back home in the evening …
… to Bobigny.
February 10
Off again but got to the Gare de l’Est too late, train full, with Renée seeing me off. She wanted me to get on anyway, especially since there were no seats on any other train. Thinking it over I put it off till the next day again.
February 11
This time left Bobigny early after saying goodbye to my parents, on my way come what may to the Gare de l’Est but not with a smile, with my dear sister seeing me off. After a long wait at the Gare de l’Est actual departure at 4 p.m. Now I’m riding the last few hours on French soil. Crossed the French-Belgian border a little after midnight at Jeumont and Erquelinnes.
Crossed Belgium all through the night via Charleroi, Namur, Liège, Verviers. Got to the German border around 9 in the morning on February 12. Then rations handed out at Aachen around 10 a.m. Left…
… Aachen at 3 p.m. bound for Hamburg. Went through Essen, got to Hanover at 11:30 p.m. Spent part of the night in the tunnels under the station. Left Hanover at 4:10 a.m. Arrived in Hamburg at 7:30 a.m. on February 13.
Then sent to the employment office, off to the camp at the Bürgersaal hotel, on the whole pretty well housed. Food pretty good but it’s still not the real thing.
February 15
Got to the factory, had my photo taken for the identity card. But also waiting the whole day without having eaten at noon. Well, there’s a first time for everything.
February 16
First day of work in Germany. It’s a big change all the same [compared with our country]. Training in mechanics. All that week one meal a day at the camp. Result, long working day, average length 10 to 11 hours. The Germans were entitled to a meal in the factory canteen. But as for us, after …
… a strong protest we managed for the following week to have the same rights as our German compatriots (let’s be clear, as our French leaders Pétain and Laval put it, who handed us over to the enemy for the famous cause of the Relève and at the same time for the Hitlerite victory on the continent of Europe). As for the promises of that gang of criminals and good-for-nothings, we were a long way from being treated the way all those bastards who handed our country over to the Nazi barbarians had told us we would be.
Because of that we were able to get the 2 meals a day, except Saturday and Sunday 1 meal.
February 26
This time I’m sent to the electric welding building while doing my training.
February 27
Went into town in the afternoon, it’s Saturday the week ends that day at 12 noon. Length of the week total hours 87 hours. That day during our walk in town we found fish and you ate pretty well, I must say, in those restaurants. It’s the…
… best thing you could eat over there, even though it was only boiled fish.
February 28
After the Sunday meal around 1 or 2 p.m. we had to wait till noon the next day. That afternoon, went out to the harbor and the city center.
March 14
My 20th birthday under the yoke of the Hitlerites.
March 22
1st week of nights. Working time 11 hours. 8:30 to 9 p.m. evening meal, from 1 to 1:30 a.m., break. In at the factory 6 p.m., out 6 a.m. Total 12 hours of hard labor at the factory repeated for 6 nights. The night week starts Monday 6 p.m. and ends Sunday 6 in the morning.
March 27
I’m part of the factory’s air-raid defense during night alerts. I was at post no. 26 near the welding shop. Tonight two alerts, lasting three and a half hours. Gun production slowed. St Pauli even got hit hard tonight.
April 4
Afternoon boat trip with three pals.
April 17
Taken straight from the factory to prison by the Gestapo. Got there at 9 in the morning on a Saturday after taking blows from the Hitlerite bastards for more than 20 minutes. Result of my being in prison (a shortfall in gun production to murder our French and Allied comrades).
The next day still locked up and on that sad Sunday of suffering I thought a lot about my pals, friends and all my family. There were at least 40 of us in one cell. Lying right on the floor, fortunately I had my overcoat with me. I’ll never forget that sad Palm Sunday spent between 4 walls with no light.
April 19
It was Monday morning and after sleeping as best I could. Around 9 o’clock or so they came to get me with another guy and I went back to the office where, well, I signed my arrest 48 hours before the Saturday. At last at 10 a.m. I was…
… freed from that cursed hell of the Hitlerite devil. At the same time when leaving the prison I had to hand in a letter at the factory office. Around noon I was at the factory I went to see my foreman and I was to go back to my night work starting at 6 p.m. After that 2-day punishment, glad to see my pals from the camp again, I had to do my best never to go back to prison, which would no doubt have dragged me into a concentration camp in the Hamburg or Bremen area, notorious at that time. I already knew the horrors of those camps and to be more…
… left alone and keep our narrow freedoms in this country of [bandits] you had to keep on with your little daily work it was the best thing even though we didn’t agree with it.
April 20
Adolf Hitler’s birthday. All the houses decked out with swastika banners. Big speeches made to the German workers at the factory to produce …
… more than ever for the victory of the New Europe.
April 23
Good Friday, holiday. Went out in the afternoon with the pals, visited the Hamburg zoological garden.
April 24-25-26
Easter holidays. Better food for those days. Cake on Easter Sunday.
May 1
Labor Day holiday.
June 13-14
Pentecost holiday. Good food. A bottle of white Bordeaux each.
June 20
Visit to the zoological garden.
June 28
Big party in our room for St. Peter’s day, the name day of 2 of our pals. Good cake and red Bordeaux wine.
July 4
Visit to the zoological garden.
July 18
Boat trip as far as Blankenese.
July 24-25
I’m working nights, a little after midnight terrible bombing. Many districts are going up in flames.
July 25
In broad daylight impossible
… to see the sun the smoke over the city is so thick. The damage is very heavy after this 1st bombing such as no city has ever known to this day. Hamburg is the 1st big city that had just suffered the biggest air raid with more than 1,200 aircraft.
July 26-27
During those 2 days the factory put us to work salvaging a few pieces of furniture spared in badly damaged buildings.
July 27 to July 28
2nd and terrible bombing. A tragic night for all of us that time, we only just escaped death. Our hotel is completely destroyed and making our way as best we could with our bags through a spot where the shelter had collapsed from a high-explosive bomb that fell on the building next door we managed to get out of there and reach a shelter in a nearby square 200 m away. In the street all flames around us it…
is nothing but blaze upon blaze and the phosphorus and high-explosive bombs are still falling not far from us. It’s a truly pitiful sight that unfolds before our eyes. The factory wasn’t hit in this 2nd bombing, which was very lucky since many comrades were working nights.
July 28
Bombed out, we are housed next to the prisoners’ camp.
July 29
We all leave around 6 p.m. by subway out to the suburbs to be a bit less exposed and we expected a new bombing that night.
July 29 to 30
3rd bombing even more intense than the last 2 with about 1,500 aircraft. All of us took refuge in a ditch sheltered by trees and from there we saw that terrible hurricane of fire unfold, which lays waste to three quarters of the city. In our corner of the suburbs we hardly feel safe, again 200 or 300 m from us phosphorus bombs on farms. A few planes went over at…
… treetop height.
But the worst was happening over the city and every moment explosions could be heard and the sky was ablaze on every side. Once again we escaped that terrible terror from the air.
July 30
Back to the city and when we got to our new neighborhood the houses are still burning. 2 prisoners’ barracks are destroyed by the fire. But fortunately all the prisoners were in the shelter but it was a close call for them all the same. Our factory this time is completely destroyed, only the canteen and the kitchen are intact, which is the main thing. Gun production stopped at our place. Good work and nobody was at the factory that night. Result no civilian losses in our factory but gun production murdered, now that’s good work for the Allied victory.
July 30-31
Back to the countryside every evening at the same time. Rations handed out at the gates of the city.
August 1
Left in the evening for Hanover after getting supplies. Long and hard journey by truck packed like sardines 13 hours to cover 150 km. The city of Hamburg is almost deserted and everywhere there is nothing but skeletons of houses rising into the sky and many neighborhoods are still burning.
That evening after we left the city at 6 p.m. late in the night Hamburg went through its 4th and terrible air raid in stormy weather. Luckily we were already far away across the countryside.
August 2
7 a.m. arrived at Empelde 5 km from Hanover at a dynamite plant. After a good welcome at the canteen ate well. In the afternoon taken to the camp 50 of us are housed there. Pitiful sight at the camp left to go to ruin and naturally all the vermin you want, lice, fleas, bedbugs (everything to make you happy, our dear collaborators fed us enough propaganda about workers in Germany well housed well fed, rutabaga soup,…
… cabbage soup, sleeping well on a good old straw mattress).
Because of that apart from ten or so who slept at the camp, the rest of us slept in a wood.
August 3
7 a.m. medical examination, back to the camp. Noon Ate the good soup. 1:30 p.m. medical examination and hired for the next day. Slept in the evening 6 km from the men’s camp near the factory and spent the night with the pals near the women’s camp superb hotel located in the middle of the woods 6 km from the factory. Way to get there Streetcar. Name of the little place where the women’s camp is Gehrden 12 kilometers from Hanover. You would almost think you were in France there and the women and the men quite a lot of them go camping. The rest of us went there just that evening out of curiosity.
August 4
Left at 4:30 a.m. to go to the factory. 6 a.m. everybody at work. I work in workshop 113 with 2 women and 1 young girl of 18.
We don’t get bored in the workshop and the time goes by chatting. But the boss often caught us doing nothing.
August 8
Went out in town in Hanover had a good time at the Franco-Belgian club.
August 10
I’m moved to another workshop with a German pal. Result the women hardly did anything anymore with us. Here I am this time in workshop 110 with some old German women, a young Russian girl and a French girl the one and only Jeanne from St Étienne.
August 15
Holiday because it’s a Sunday. In the following years it was a working day, to make guns. Walk in the woods.
September 5 and 12
Walk in town.
September 22
Around 10 p.m. Hanover was hit hard. Now it’s another city’s turn to start taking terrible blows. Many fires broke out in the city. About 1 km from the dynamite plant a foreigners’ camp was destroyed.
It was during that day that we learned we were going back to Hamburg 2 days later.
September 23
Last day of work at the dynamite plant it wasn’t without trouble. Most of the ones in this factory are P.P.F. The French delegate and camp leader real good-for-nothings. What a relief to leave this factory and this lousy Hanover region, bad mentality of the German population. The women are all volunteers too.
September 24
Left at the end of the morning and waited until 10 p.m. to take the train.
September 25
Arrived in Hamburg at 1 a.m. and got back to the camp around 9 a.m.
October 1
Back to work in our factory in ruins. We have to clear the ruins to produce again but now not much will come out of it for the war anymore.
October 3
I received from the French delegation a gray suit a pair of work shoes and a pair of socks.
October 17
Photographed in a group with the pals.
October 20
Got the bomb-victim allowance.
October 22
The men on leave from our factory set off. 35 leaving.
October 24
Show with one of my pals at the St Pauli variety theater.
October 25
Break-in and looting in our room. Result 3 of my pals and I were robbed. For my part my new suit, my suitcase, my pair of shoes, socks. The other pals one of them the hardest hit suit and parcel from France received the day before. The others shoes. That day I was really thrilled, and no wonder!
October 31
Photographed with the pals.
November 7
Variety show in St Pauli.
December 9
Another break-in in the room! For the 2nd time I was robbed of a new suit…
… that I got with coupons from the factory. There’s the result of this business, caused by all these crooks.
December 20
Photographed with the pals in the room.
December 24
Holiday. Christmas Eve from 5 p.m. in the evening all over Germany. No shows cinema, theater, variety, cafés. All the shopkeepers and the transport too, everything is stopped. That evening Christmas Eve everyone spends the holiday with their family.
December 25
Christmas Day. Life goes back to normal. All the shows and transport are running. The food is a bit better for the holidays.
December 31
Holiday. New Year’s Eve. All the shows are running just like back home in France. We all got a bottle of red Bordeaux, a few cakes to have a bit of a New Year’s Eve party.
January 1, 1944
1st New Year’s Day spent far from your family and from all …
… your best friends. Sad day of remembrance.
February 11
Anniversary of my departure for Germany. Now that’s 1 year gone by without seeing my family. No leave it’s still suspended. Our pals who went on leave last October have not come back.
February 13
Anniversary of my arrival in Hamburg.
February 20
A good evening: I put on a big performance in the room. Concert and singing.
March 5
Variety show in St Pauli.
March 14
My 21st birthday.
April 2
Boat trip to Harburg.
April 7-8-9-10
Easter holiday. Went out to a football match.
April 20
Adolf Hitler’s birthday. A lot fewer swastika flags but a few more ruins all over the city.
April 23
Variety show in St Pauli.
May 1
Labor Day. Went to see…
… a football match in the afternoon.
May 21
Went to the stadium.
May 28-29
Pentecost holiday. Boat trip to Blankenese.
June 18
New and terrible air raid the 1st of the year 1944. Lots of high-explosive and phosphorus bombs. Heavy damage across the whole city, ruins from the July 1943 raids were churned up again too.
June 20
New and terrible bombing on the port and the industrial districts of Hamburg.
July 20
Attempt on Hitler’s life. The English answer with a serious bombing on the city.
July 21
Big speech at the factory to encourage the German workers to produce more and more for the victory of the barbarians against human civilization.
July 22
Bombing on the city again.
July 26
Pretty violent bombing.
July 28
Terrible bombing. Very heavy damage.
August 6
Bombing on the port and St Pauli.
September 3
Spent a good afternoon at the French club in the suburbs of Hamburg.
September 9
We spent a pleasant evening at the French club.
September 10
Spent the afternoon at the variety theater.
September 30
Bombing on the port and St Pauli.
October 25
Terrible bombing in the area around our factory. Very heavy damage.
October 31
Bombing on the city just about everywhere.
November 5
Paid tribute with many comrades at the cemetery to the victims, the French who died during the worst bombings of Hamburg.
November 11
Big air raid on the town of Harburg, big industrial center.
December 24-25-26
Christmas celebrations.
December 31
Bombing on …
… Hamburg and Harburg. Heavy damage.
Year 1945
January 1
New Year’s Day. No celebrating. Situation very tense.
January 16
Bombing on the city of Hamburg.
January 17
Terrible air raid on the port.
February 11
Anniversary of my departure from France, from Paris. 2 years already far from my family, my parents and friends.
February 13
Two years ago I was arriving in Hamburg after a long and hard journey.
February 24
Bombing on the port and St Pauli.
March 6
Start of the barricades in the streets of Hamburg. Most of us are taken on to put up the barricades in the streets near the factory.
March 7 and 8
Bombing on Harburg and Hamburg near the port.
March 11
Violent air raid on the city of Hamburg, the port and the industrial area of Harburg.
March 14
My 22nd birthday.
March 18
This Sunday they made us work on the barricades too with 4 air-raid warnings not much output.
March 20
Violent air raid on the port in the afternoon.
March 30
Terrible bombing over the whole city. Heavy damage.
April 1
Easter. In the afternoon went out to the movies with the pals. A color film, very well done. Only time without an air-raid warning. I mention this because since January 1, 1945, air-raid warnings without a break night and day. It’s starting to get better for us liberation is coming a bit more hope, while waiting for that day we have been waiting for so long. But the days ahead are still very hard to get through especially with the…
… sufferings of hunger and also not sleeping a single quiet night. But we keep our courage to the end, until we can leave the cursed Hitlerite hell.
April 2
Easter Monday not a holiday. We are all working on the barricades. The air-raid warnings come harder than ever.
April 7 and 8
New bombing on Hamburg and Harburg.
April 12
We have finished the barricades. Last day of work in Hamburg.
April 13
In the evening we got the order to leave the city. The danger is getting close. The great collapse is starting.
In the night of April 13 to 14 terrible bombing over the whole city. That was another close call. The terrible days are coming but liberation is not far off. The Bremen area is the scene of hard fighting. Hanover has fallen and the Allied armies are advancing …
… toward Hamburg.
April 14
5 in the morning we leave the camp and set off on foot in a column to the station with the baggage. We are guarded by the Gestapo. 9 a.m. we leave Hamburg by train, at noon we get off the train. Here we are dropped off 80 km from the city. We waited all afternoon in a meadow near the station and we are at the mercy of the fighter planes that keep strafing all along the railway line. Around 6 in the evening we set off in a column to reach another village and spent the night in a wood near a [potato silo].
April 15
We camped all morning and ate boiled potatoes. It’s our only food and lucky to find any at that. In the afternoon back on the road again to reach another village.
Tonight we slept in a big farm.
April 16
In the evening on the road again. In every town and village we always have to evacuate further on! Around 11 at night arrived in another village. We are worn out from a hard stretch with the baggage. We spent the night in a farmyard on the straw.
April 17
Still boiled potatoes for food and around 10 a.m. on the road again for the longest stretch to get closer to the banks of the Elbe. Rough day. In the evening we are worn out by fatigue and the heat (of the first fine days). Slept that night in a barn.
April 18
Around 8 on the road to try to cross the Elbe but around 11 it was too late to get across and the German army requisitioned us to dig trenches!
April 20
1st day of work with the German army.
April 22
Day of rest. We killed a calf that we ate the next day.
April 23
Work on the trenches still in the same village.
April 24
Left the village after staying there for 8 days. We keep going on our way with no set destination, and arrived late, at nightfall. At last we stay in this new village 10 km from Boizenburg.
April 25
The German army makes us work at night on the trenches. Left at 8 p.m. once we got there they make us wait to wait for orders. 1 hour later back to our quarters.
April 26
Left at 8 p.m. and at 9:30 they take us to unload ammunition, the sector is dangerous all of a sudden around 12:30 a.m. an English…
… fighter drops a flare over our spot and shortly after, bombs are dropped and fall 300 meters from us. That was another close call for us that time. At 2 a.m., the work done, we walk back to our quarters, a 10 km march.
April 27
At noon we leave by truck to go to the same place as the night before, once there the German officer mad with rage locks us up in a shed. The Allies are 4 or 5 km from us on the other side of the Elbe. Around 1 p.m. they give us food in a basin and a slice of bread. In the afternoon they leave us there and we sleep to kill the time which seems terribly long to us. At 7 in the evening they feed us again the same way as at noon; at 10 p.m. they come to get 7 men to work, me with my [pals].
We stay and we go on sleeping. At 2 a.m. they come to get the other team. I worked an hour and around 4 o’clock I was going back to the quarters with 2 pals. The others stayed until 6 and even 8 a.m. Sad day. The Boches are seething with rage but for us liberation is near.
April 28
We go off to work again with those dirty Boches. But once we get there we get orders to go back to the quarters. From midnight the offensive starts to cross the Elbe. All night the guns thunder from every side.
April 29
The Allied artillery keeps pounding our sector. In the evening the dirty Boches take us to work anyway. Got to a village impossible to go any farther…
… the guns thunder without a break.
… the artillery shells fall all around us about 40 to 50 m away. Then we were quick to get back to our quarters. We had some awful close calls, but we keep our cool, liberation is closer and closer. All night…
April 30
The battle keeps moving toward us. At noon the Allies are 3 km from us. The village where we had our close call the night before is completely destroyed. The boches order us to evacuate to the rear. But we stay put, waiting for deliverance. All day the artillery hits hard and shells fall all over the place. All night it hits hard.
May 1
After an eventful night. Around 8 in the morning the Boches fire back in the village but at 9 the white flag is raised and we have just been liberated.
It is a great joy for us and a great relief. On this May 1st which is also Labor Day and lily-of-the-valley day it’s really a day to celebrate. Now the joy of going back to France is near.
May 2, May 3
We watch the columns of Boche prisoners go by on the road, everyone gets his turn, it’s not June 1940 anymore with the Boches marching into Paris.
May 4, 5
We start celebrating the liberation: Better food. For a week we eat pork it tastes good.
May 10
Left in the morning for Boizenburg. That day I drank some good Rhine wine, but afterwards I was drunk. In the evening we leave by truck with the French prisoners. We went through Lüneburg and we slept in a little…
… village on a farm.
May 11
We set off again around 7 we go through Celle, the outskirts of Hanover and [Hameln]. In the evening we sleep on a farm.
May 12
We set off again around 7 toward Paderborn but this morning our POW comrades got stuck with a breakdown. We have landed in a good village. We are put up in a school.
May 13
We stay on that day too while waiting to go somewhere else.
May 14
In the afternoon we leave by truck and they take us to a pleasant estate, good beds, well fed. We were never so happy during our stay in Germany.
May 15 and 16
We spend some good days waiting for the trip back to France.
May 17
Left at 8 by …
… truck an 80 km leg. We go past Münster and 6 km from that town after delousing and a bite to eat, we head off around 1 p.m. for the train. Left at 5 p.m. In the evening we cross the Rhine.
May 18
We only did 50 km the whole day. Crossed the Dutch border in the night shortly after the Belgian one.
May 19
We cross Belgium through Liège, Namur (Rations), Charleroi and arrival at the French border at Jeumont around 5 p.m.
May 20
Formalities and medical check. Rations. In the evening at 4 p.m. left Jeumont for Paris! Arrived at Paris Nord at 2 in the morning. Then sent on to the reception center at the Vélodrome d’Hiver.