Self-Abstraction from the Nazis

One of the most sensational escapes from the Nazis in World War II has been made by a leading French abstract painter who comes from a long line of French soldiers and whose great-grandfather fought all through the Napoleonic wars. Last week Painter Jean Helion (who has had 15 one-man shows in the U.S. alone) told as much as he could, without endangering those who helped him, of how he escaped from a Nazi prison camp in Eastern Prussia, crossed some 1,000 miles of Germany, Belgium and Occupied France to Vichy, later sailed for the U.S.

In January 1940 Jean Helion, 38, left the U.S., his American wife and infant son. Says Artist Helion: "I could not resist going back to fight the Nazis."

Six months later German armored cars encircled his battalion. Nazi officers shouted in French: "The war is over. You will be home in three days." The French laid down their arms, were promptly herded behind barbed wire. "You said the war was over," they protested. Said the Nazis: "For you, not for us."

During the next five days Abstractionist Helion and his fellow prisoners were marched 147 miles. For five days they had no food whatever, only what water they could snatch from buckets placed on the road by French peasants. On the fifth night, utterly exhausted, they were waked up by their German guards who screamed: "Run! Run!" The prisoners ran. Nazis fired at their heels. Helion saw seven men drop dead from exhaustion. Those who survived were given tobacco and food. Purpose of this treatment was: first to terrify the prisoners, then to show them how kind the Germans really were.

At Orleans the prisoners were entrained and told they were going home. Instead they were taken to a huge baronial estate in Pomerania. Treatment of the prisoners was barbarous: Helion saw one Frenchman clubbed to death for taking a second helping of soup.

So Abstract Painter Helion began to plot his escape. With the aid of a Shell Oil road map he had found, Helion spent months studying a route to Switzerland. Suddenly he was moved to a camp at Stettin in eastern Germany. There he was made prison interpreter, got himself elected "representative" by the other prisoners. He gained the confidence of the Nazis. Meanwhile he picked up vital facts about the geography of the district. Again he began to plan escape.

After five false starts in six months, Artist Helion finally decided to fake a toothache. Ordered to bed one Friday the 13th, Helion escaped while the guards were busy with the other prisoners. He got to the street in civilian clothes. A Nazi cop hove in sight. Artist Helion immediately went up to him and asked him the time. Asked the cop: "What are you doing in a forbidden area?" Said Helion: "I'm a worker imported from Antwerp." He added: "Where can I get a decent glass of beer?" The cop directed him to his favorite bar. With German money obtained from secret sources Helion got to Berlin. There, Helion spent most of the day in Berlin's largest department store.

Posing as a Flemish worker on vacation from Danzig, Artist Helion next boarded a train to Cologne, got through two examinations of his false papers, mixed with a friendly carload of Nazi soldiers. He sneaked across the border to Belgium Then by stealing rides on trucks, Helion reached the French frontier, crawled through vegetable gardens at dusk, evading patrols, and reached Paris.

After a ten-day visit with friends, Helion set off for Unoccupied France, using a forged identity card. He crossed the border by crawling in the snow between two guards, reached Vichy and reported to Vichy police. Says Helion: "I was very well received by them." After he had been deloused, sent to a demobilization camp for escaped prisoners, the authorities gave Helion full pay for his 21 months' captivity. The delighted French War Ministry presented him with 2,000 francs. They also gave him permission to leave France.

Says Abstract Painter Helion, once more with wife and three-year-old son in their Virginia home: "Escaping is really all a matter of keeping your nerve, distracting attention at the crucial moment." Of his painting he says: "I have been able to start exactly where I left off, partly because my wife has kept my unfinished pictures on their easels just as they were when I went away."

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