Mémorial de la Resistance (Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure)
The Mémorial de la Résistance ( German : "Résistance-Gedenkstätte") is a memorial and at the same time a national cemetery in the French commune of Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure in the Charente department . It was erected after the end of the Second World War in memory of the more than one thousand fallen Resistance fighters from the Charente and Charente-Maritime departments .
history
Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure was an important center for the Resistence group Maquis de Bir Hacheim . André Chabanne and Guy Pascaud , two surviving officers and members of this group, had the idea after the liberation of Charente to erect a monument in honor of the Resistance. It was intended to commemorate the fallen volunteers who died “for the freedom and greatness of the fatherland” and in particular the 170 known and anonymous maquisards who were deported or killed in battle.
description
The memorial is located on a small wooded hill west of Chasseneuil and is terraced . Sixty steps lead to a central monument which is 21 meters high and represents a symbolic union of a “V” (for Victoire ) with a Lorraine cross .
The monument is the work of the Charent architect and former Resistance fighter François Poncelet. Sixty German prisoners were used as labor for the construction. It is designed as a “book made of stone”, the bas-reliefs are by the three sculptors Georges Guiraud (1900–1989), Raoul Lamourdedieu (1877–1943) and Émile Peyronnet (1872–1956): on the left and right are the civil and military resistance represented, on the Lorraine cross the victims, martyrs and deportees. The remains of 30 resistance fighters, including those of Claude Bonnier and André Chabanne, rest in a crypt . On the upper part of the entrance door are the words Français, ne les oubliez pas (“French, don't forget them”).
The monument was financed by private donations, the sale of postcards (which raised 8.5 million francs ), a grant of 5 million francs approved by the National Assembly on August 10, 1950, and a surplus of funds based on an “exemption loan ” ( Emprunt de la Liberation ) from 1944.
The Mémorial is surrounded by a two-hectare cemetery that contains 2,255 graves of soldiers and resistance fighters of World War II. Some of the fallen belonged to the Maquis de Bir Hacheim and died in the battles for La Rochelle , Rochefort and Royan .
Different types of tombstones for different religions
Islamic tombstones
Christian tombstones
Ceremonies
- October 21, 1951: Inauguration by the French President Vincent Auriol ("Homage to the names of the nation, all those who fought, resisted, all those who fell victim.").
- June 12, 1963: Visit of President Charles de Gaulle , accompanied by Interior Minister Roger Frey and Information Minister Alain Peyrefitte .
- 1968: Later burial of 726 soldiers who died for France in the rear part of the Mémorial.
- March 7, 1970: Visit of the Minister Henri Duvillard in the presence of Hélène Nebout (called Chef Luc ) from the Maquis de Bir Hacheim.
- August 31, 1984: Inauguration of the Claude Bonnier route by Jacques Chaban-Delmas .
- October 21, 2001: Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the memorial.
See also
Web links
- Mémorial de la Résistance on the official website of Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Raymond Troussard: Le maquis Bir charentais Hacheim , 1981, p 249th
Coordinates: 45 ° 49 '24.4 " N , 0 ° 26" 19.6 " E