The Experiences of Alice Juliette Wentzinger as an Alsatian Refugee during World War II

Eight days before France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the government decided to evacuate the population of the border city of Strasbourg. On August 30, 1939, the citizens of Strasbourg were told that the evacuation date has been fixed on September 3 for all the inhabitants of Zone 1 (the city of Strasbourg proper), and those who did not leave voluntarily would be forced to leave. Within three and a half days, more than 300,000 Alsatians left for Dordogne in southwestern France. Mme Alice NeuMeyer Wentzinger was one of the evacuees who left Strasbourg during this time. Alice Juliette NeuMeyer was born a German citizen on June 12, 1914, in Strasbourg while the city was part of Germany and became a French citizen when France regained Strasbourg after World War I. After she received a diploma in commerce, she worked for a bank from August 1930 to1932. From April 1932 until the evacuation she worked in a cold storage store that was owned by a Jewish family. This paper uses her autobiography to explore her experiences as an Alsatian refugee in Perigord. It highlights the unexpected problems that urban refugees faced after they arrived in a rural region on the other side of France. The refugees’ reception was further complicated by cultural and linguistic differences. The Alsatians had been under German control from 1871 to 1918 and were quite different from the French population of the interior partly because they spoke Alsatian which is similar to German.