Testimony of Maurice Bernsohn, born in Strasbourg, France, 1921, regarding his experiences in the Jewish Scouts movement in Toulouse, Lautrec, in the Maquis, using a false identity, in Mazamet, Castres and in the French Army

Testimony of Maurice Bernsohn, born in Strasbourg, France, 1921, regarding his experiences in the Jewish Scouts movement in Toulouse, Lautrec, in the Maquis, using a false identity, in Mazamet, Castres and in the French Army Activities in the Jewish Scouts movement in Toulouse; establishment of agricultural points by the Jewish Scouts movement, along with the movement's center in Lautrec under the administration of Robert Gamzon and Peleg, autumn 1940; employment of the scout trainees in agricultural, crafts and general education in a traditional atmosphere; receives budgets from the Vichy government as a group of working, religious youth; start of the deportations of Jews, 1942; agricultural aliya training groups are turned into places for underground activities; prevention of detentions of the aliya training groups members due to the help of the commander of the Gendarmerie; liquidation of the aliya training group in Lautrec; aliya training people join the French underground, Maquis de L'Armee Secrete, along with other Scouts, summer 1943; activities using a false identity, with his camouflage name Maurice Berton, as the deputy commander of the movement; activities in the publication of an underground newspaper; receives weapons by means of parachuting of the weapons; participation of Maquis people in the attack on a train with Germans on the Mazamet-Castres railroad line; participation in the liberation of Mazamet and Castres, late July 1944; Maquis Scouts join the regular French Army; combat for the liberation of France. Attempts by Gamzon and Hamel to consolidate the young Jewish people, after the liberation; cultural activities by the witness in Jewish orphanages; aliya to Eretz Israel, June 1947; life on Kibbutz Neve Ilan.