The mountain paths are as treacherous as they are steep
- the more so in the dark & in winter. Even for the fit the journey is a formidable challenge. Hundreds of those who climbed through the Pyrenees during the Second World War were malnourished & exhausted after weeks on the run hiding in barns & attics. Many never even reached the Spanish border. Today their bravery & endurance is commemorated each July by a trek along the Chemin de la Liberte
- the toughest & most dangerous of wartime routes. From his fellow pilgrims Edward Stourton uncovers stories of midnight scrambles across rooftops & drops from speeding trains; burning Lancasters, doomed love affairs, horrific murder & astonishing heroism. The lives of the men, women & children who were drawn by the war to the Pyrenees often read as breathtakingly exciting adventure, but they were led against a background of intense fear, mounting persecution & appalling risk. Drawing on interviews with the few remaining survivors & the families of those who were there, Edward Stourton's vivid history of this little-known aspect of the Second World War is shocking, dramatic & intensely moving.