"75 years ago in this prison was one of those massacres that only the Nazi regime could orchestrate. Under the pressure of the Allied armies recently landed on our shores, the Germans wanted to remove from their enemies the resistant detainees who were interned in the cells of this prison. It is with these words that Robert Duval, former prisoner, began the ceremony held Wednesday, June 6 in front of the Caen prison, in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron.
19 years old at the time, Robert Duval narrowly escaped this killing: extract from the prison to be deported to Germany at the end of May 1944, he did not know the fate of his resistant comrades . On June 6, 1944, a few hours after the D-Day, the Germans who control the prison decide to execute the resisters who are detained there. They do not want the Allies to release them and get valuable information. "In groups of six, with their hands on their heads, the victims were taken to the small courtyards for the walks, where they were shot," says Robert Duval. It is estimated that between 75 and 87 resisters were summarily executed on D-Day. Only 71 have been identified to date. The youngest was 18, the oldest 66.
"The mystery remains for us whole"
The bodies were first buried in the prison yard, but as the Allies progressed, the Germans unearthed them on June 29 and loaded them into trucks. To which destination? "The mystery remains for us all," says Robert Duval. Indeed, 75 years after this massacre, their remains have never been found. Since the end of the war, all kinds of assumptions have been made. Historians, journalists, enthusiasts, many have embarked on research, without result so far.
Each year, families of these shots meet on June 6 at Caen prison to honor their memory. This year, the ceremony was advanced exceptionally to June 5 because of the arrival of Emmanuel Macron. After participating in a large international ceremony in Portsmouth in the morning, the French president emphasized the spirit of National Resistance. "It is important as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings to have honored, as we did this morning, all the Allied forces who prepared this Operation Overlord and who landed on the morning of June 6 to liberate French soil, but also to salute the involvement of the Resistance and the martyrs who have fallen here and who have survived, "he said at the end of the ceremony. "It is this alliance of allied forces from all over the world, our Resistance and the French military that have liberated the country. We must not forget any of these components. "
>> To read: In Portsmouth and Caen, leaders and veterans launched the D-Day commemorations
To convey this story, the Élysée placed at the heart of this moving ceremony of young schoolchildren in the Caen region. They concluded this tribute by depositing blueberries at the foot of the portraits of the shots, expressing what evokes for them, 75 years later, the fight of their elders: "To resist, it is not to submit and not to accept the barbarism ".