The prefecture of the department of Corrèze announces that a possible “pit” has been identified following the soil analysis campaign by georadar carried out at the end of June in Meymac. The latter was initiated as part of the search for the remains of German soldiers shot by the Resistance in 1944.
In a press release published on Wednesday, the authorities announce that the results of this soil analysis campaign seem convincing. A change in soil density over a rectangular area 45 meters long and 10 meters wide that could correspond to a pit was observed at one of the two sites concerned.
The prefecture adds that excavations are now necessary to verify whether or not this area contains the remains sought and should be carried out during the second half of August. They will be supervised by archaeologists and specialists commissioned by the National Office for Veterans and War Victims (ONACVG), with the technical support of the German organization VDK, in charge of the maintenance of German war graves.
According to the testimony of Edmond Réveil, 98 years old, 46 German soldiers and a French woman suspected of collaboration were executed on a wooded hill in Meymac on June 12, 1944.
In 1967, the first excavations had already taken place in the greatest secrecy, with the aim of finding the bodies of these Wehrmacht soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Resistance in Corrèze on June 7 and 8, 1944 before being shortly executed. after the massacres committed by the SS Das Reich Division in Tulle on June 9, and in Oradour-sur Glane (Haute-Vienne) on June 10.
These excavations had made it possible to exhume eleven bodies. Former resistance fighter Edmond Réveil and another witness who attended the excavations carried out in 1967 indicated the area in which the new research is being carried out.