Reserved for subscribers
REPORTING. In the commune of Corrèze, the discovery of the execution of forty-seven Wehrmacht soldiers and a young French woman from the Gestapo raises fears of a re-reading of history.
By our special correspondent in Corrèze, Alice Pairo-Vasseur
© Patrick ALLARD/REA / Patrick ALLARD/REA FOR “LE POINT”
Published on
Subscriber-only audio playback
Ihe silence lasted nearly 80 years. A few days ago, the former resistance fighter Edmond Réveil, 98, lifted the veil on the heaviest secret of the internal resistance movement of the FTP (Francs-tireurs et partisans) of Meymac, in Haute-Corrèze: the summary execution , on June 12, 1944, of forty-seven Wehrmacht soldiers and a young French girl from the Gestapo. In the town of 2,500 inhabitants, a hotbed of French resistance, the subject remains extremely sensitive and the revelation of this episode is received differently.
We are on June 8, 1944. Edmond Réveil, alias “Papillon”, is 18 years old. Entered the maquis in 1943 as a liaison officer, he took part in the attack on the normal school for girls in Tulle, where the Germans were established. Fifty-five soldiers are arrested…