Switzerland Border Saint-Gingolph, 1944 (b/w photo)

On July 30, 1944, a clergyman and his sister brought his belongings across the border crossing the middle of the village of St. Gingolph on Lake Geneva. On the Swiss side of the border there is already a handcart ready for transport. After an attack by French Resistance fighters on July 22, 1944 on German soldiers at the border post in St. Gingolph, the SS causes a bloodbath the next day and shoots six villagers who have not fled and destroys part of the village, 80 houses are burned down. The president of the Valaisan part of the village, Andre Chaperon, tries to negotiate and intervenes with the German commander Captain Hartmann. 313 Dof residents from France were able to flee across the open border to Switzerland and received asylum. The Valais fire brigade succeeded in extinguishing the fires at the church on French soil, operated jointly by the two parts of the village.