a former resistant reveals summary executions of soldiers

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Video length: 2 min.

France 2

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A. Guery, A. Brodin, France 3 Limousin – France 2

France Televisions

In Corrèze, a resistance fighter from the Second World War reveals the execution of around forty German soldiers and a French woman from the Gestapo, on June 12, 1944. Edmond Réveil, 98, was then 18.

Somewhere in his woods Meymac (Correze), the land contains a mass grave, with the bodies of 47 German soldiers shot by resistance fighters. The last of them is 98 years old, and no longer wants to be silent. “The world needs to know, what happened”believes Edmond Réveil, before adding: “The event is not glorious, because we do not have the right to kill prisoners”.

“They gave us the order to kill them”

The story begins in Tulle (Corrèze), on June 8, 1944. The resistance fighters decide to take the city from the Germans. Edmond Réveil is 18 years old, and is one of the guerrillas who attack the garrison. 60 Germans are killed, and fifty are taken prisoner. On June 12, they plunge into the countryside with 47 soldiers and a woman, close to the Gestapo. The order then falls. “They gave us the order to kill them. The captain who commanded us was crying when he told them. He spoke to them one by one, because he was Alsatian, he spoke German very well”he recalls.


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