• On June 27, 1944, 15 resistance fighters taken from Saint-Michel prison in Toulouse were shot in the little wood of La Reulle.

    Ten were identified in the following months.

  • An association of enthusiasts took over the investigation in 2000. It managed to put a name on four shots.

  • There remains a fifth who resists research, probably not from the region.

  • So, if there is in your family history, a heroic ancestor, who fought in the shadows near Toulouse and never heard from again, the story of the stranger with three handkerchiefs and pajamas scratched will perhaps wake up an echo.

DNA, three handkerchiefs with initials, clothes, including pajamas and woolen stockings.

These are the clues, not so meager, which could make it possible to identify, 78 years later, the man who for the time being remains the fifth and "last unknown in the Bois de la Reulle".

It was there, in a small clearing in the town of Castelmaurou, northwest of the Pink City, that on June 27, 1944, the sinister SS Das Reich division took resistance fighters imprisoned in the Saint-Michel prison in Toulouse and shot them without further trial.

Fifteen men died and were buried on the spot, a sixteenth took to their heels through the woods.

It took three months and the departure of the Germans to uncover the mass grave.

Ten of those shot, from the area, were identified in September 1944 and returned to their families.

But for the others, it was necessary to wait for the dawn of the 2000s and the entry on the track of a group of rather tenacious enthusiasts.

The members of the association of those shot in the Bois de la Reulle gathered thousands of documents and testimonies and succeeded in the feat in 2011 of exhuming those shot by court decision to collect their DNA.

He "matched" four times between 2012 and 2017, crowning the quest for success.

A Belgian, a Ile-de-France, an Ardenese then a Corsican now rest at home, in a grave in their name.

"We assume that the fifth was not from the region either", underlines Jean-Daniel Gaudais,

A Mediterranean

So, what do we know about this stranger, who could awaken the memories of a family, in France or beyond?

“We know that he was resistant, that he was arrested at the beginning of 1944 and imprisoned in Saint-Michel and that he never reappeared”, summarizes the retired policeman.

Then there are the famous handkerchiefs.

Two bear the letter M, the third is marked L. Are these the initials of the shot, those of a fiancée, or of another stranger?

“There are several theories in the group”, admits Jean-Daniel Gaudais.

Same multiplication of leads for the famous pajamas with blue stripes, worn under civilian clothes.

"It may be a prisoner who was leaving the hospital," suggests the investigator, whose research in the medical archives yielded nothing.

"Unless he was arrested jumping out of bed."

Finally, there is the solid DNA trail.

Thanks to progress in this area, the anthropology laboratory of the University of Strasbourg, which has been following the file of the executed since 2011, is now able to say that the mysterious executed had Mediterranean origins, perhaps in northern Italy. .

"He may also be a descendant of Spaniard or Portuguese," says Jean-Daniel Gaudais, who constantly contacts cultural associations to pull the thread of the ball.

Discouragement and false leads

As it does every time, the association has just helped a family, precisely of Italian origin – and whose name begins with M – to write a request to the Toulouse prosecutor's office for DNA comparison purposes.

For René Durand, the president of the association, and the researchers, this is not the most promising theory.

" But we never know ".

The real trail, boiling hot, the investigators thought they had it last year.

A lady from Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne) contacted them.

His father had been imprisoned in Saint-Michel, on the right dates.

What's more, the mayor of the town, a certain Louis Moles – LM – had linen brought to his fellow prisoners at the time.

“The comparison unfortunately turned out to be negative, deplores Jean-Daniel Gaudais.

At least the family knows.

But at the time, it really knocked us down, like anesthetized ”.

On the spot only.

Because as long as there remains on the monument of the small clearing and on the vault of the cemetery of Castelmaurou a line without a name, a number without a face, they will tirelessly relaunch their call.

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