Thibaud Hue, edited by Corentin Alloune / Photo credit: GUY Christian / hemis.fr / hemis.fr / Hemis via AFP 11:18 am, May 17, 2023
A search campaign has been launched in Corrèze to find the 47 German soldiers and a French woman accused of collaboration, executed by the local resistance that has been silent for many decades.It is a secret that the elders of Corrèze have long kept. On June 12, 1944, the resistance reportedly executed about forty German soldiers and a French woman linked to the Gestapo.
An important testimony
Edmond Réveille, 98 years old, just of age at the time, remembers it as if it were yesterday. Delivering this extremely accurate testimony is a relief for him. The town hall of Meymac, where he lives, the prefecture and the National Office of Veterans have taken these revelations very seriously and will launch excavations in the region.
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There will be searches with a geolocation, a radar that will come to explore the ground on the area on which it is suspected that these soldiers are buried in probably two separate graves. More comprehensive excavations will be carried out to exhume all the remains of these soldiers.
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"This is a precious testimony for the families of the German soldiers who were executed here in Meymac, because it will allow them to find their ancestors. And then it can be a way to repatriate the bodies and to do this duty of memory. But it's also important for history. Moreover, it is Edmond Réveille who says it himself. There weren't all good guys and bad guys on either side. Nothing is ever black or white. We are often in the gray," says Philippe Brugère, mayor of Meymac, in Corrèze.