PARIS, France (AP) — As France prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of the Nazi surrender to Allied forces, survivors of World War II reflect on painful memories of fear, deprivation and persecution shaped by the German occupation of the country and the deportation of Jews and others to death camps.

In May 1940, Nazi forces swept through France. Among those caught in the chaos was 15-year-old Geneviève Perrier, who fled her village in northeastern France to escape the advancing German troops like millions of others. By June, France had surrendered.

Three years later, Esther Senot, 15, was arrested by French police and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 1944, 19-year-old Ginette Kolinka was sent to the same death camp.

Now close to 100 years old, the women continue to share their stories, determined to keep the memory of the war alive and pass its lessons on to future generations.

“We were scared,” Perrier remembered as she described fleeing on a bicycle with her mother, carrying only a small travel bag, while her uncle took a horse-drawn cart on the roads of eastern France.

“There were lots of people fleeing, with kids in baby carriages, everyone was running away. There was a column of civilians fleeing and a column of French soldiers fleeing,” she said.

Perrier and others hid in a field when they heard bomber planes. “Mom had a white hat. Some told her: ‘Remove your hat!’ And that’s when I saw a huge bomb pass over our heads. It didn’t explode. It was the chance of a lifetime.”

Later taking a train, Perrier found refuge for a few months in a small town in southwestern France, in an area governed by the collaborationist Vichy regime, before her mother decided they would go back home — only to live under harsh Nazi occupation.

“The Resistance was big in our area,” Perrier said, adding she was willing to join the so-called French Forces of the Interior (FFI). Three women from the FFI were captured and tortured by the Nazis just a few kilometers away from her home, she recalled.

“My mother kept telling me: ‘No, I don’t want you........

© The Times of Israel