2023-11-03 15:06:08
The Richemont Farm memorialmonument to the martyrs of the South-West Resistance, in Saucats (Gironde), “was desecrated during the night from Thursday to Friday” announced this Friday the Gironde departmental council, owner of the site.
The damage committed on the memorial during the night from Thursday to Friday. – Benoît Labbé
“Vandals destroyed the lintel of the door with a sledgehammer as well as the other surrounding stones which symbolized the farm,” explains the department. They also unsealed slabs surrounding the obelisk. These intolerable degradations endanger this high place of memory visited each year by many high school and college students to carry out the “work of memory” which maintains our social cohesion. » The department, “loudly denounces these acts of incitement to hatred in these times of rising anti-Semitism and racism” and has filed a complaint with the gendarmerie.
A 35 meter high obelisk inaugurated in 1953
“It was me who called the gendarmes in the morning,” he told 20 Minutes the president of the memorial committee, Benoît Labbé. We are certain that it is indeed a deterioration, not the storm, given the extent of the damage. It’s a horror. » The president of the committee explains that, despite the recent installation of a barrier supposed to prevent the passage of vehicles and night rodeos, caravans continued to regularly set up around the site. “Normally, camping should be strictly prohibited around this historic monument” underlines Benoît Labbé.
This memorial commemorates the fight which took place on July 14, 1944 on this farm and which pitted around fifteen young resistance fighters from the French Interior Forces against around a hundred members of the Gestapo and the French Militia. Begun in 1948, the 35 meter high obelisk was inaugurated in 1953. Stones, taken from the destroyed building, forming a low wall, a low door lintel and its two uprights recall the farm where the elements took place.
“The fight lasted three hours in total”
This morning of July 14, 1944, “the militia arrived by the Barp road, the Germans by Saint-Magne, and took the young resistance fighters at the foot of the bed, at 8 a.m.,” says Benoît Labbé. Fifteen young resistance fighters took part in the fight that day. The young Philippe Beguerie – then taken in by a farmer – and two Moroccans – who were never found – managed to escape via ditches, after using all their ammunition. The other twelve were either mortally wounded when the Germans brought in a cannon and fired four shells, or finished off by the militiamen. The fight lasted three hours in total. A last resistance fighter, who arrived after the fighting, was taken prisoner at the Souge camp and shot on July 28. » This is why we are talking about thirteen victims in total.
As the memorial committee specifies, the site pays tribute to “all the resistance fighters of the South-West covering the departments of Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne as well as Basses-Pyrénées [aujourd’hui Pyrénées-Atlantiques]. » “In this place are therefore honored all those who resisted the Nazi invader: those shot, those who died in deportation, in combat or under torture as well as the suicides wanting to escape the confessions extorted by the abuse they endured. »
#Richemont #memorial #vandalized #night #Thursday #Friday