As every year around October 24, the names of the 256 shot Souge camp in Martignas-sur-Jalle (Gironde) will be ginned this Sunday, on the occasion of the traditional ceremony in their homage. But this year will be special, since we are celebrating the 80th anniversary of the first massive shootings at the Souge camp.
“Souge is a military camp, which was occupied by the Germans during the Second World War,” recalls the president of
the association of Souvenir of the shot in Souge, Jean Lavie. Here, they shot 256 resistance patriots between 1940 and 1944, coming from an area going from Poitiers to Bayonne. We find people who came from Dordogne, Charente-Maritime, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, maquis des Landes and Médoc. The Souge camp is thus after the
Mont-Valérien the second place of shooting in France. “
For a German officer killed, 50 people shot
On October 24, 1941, the first mass shooting took place. Fifty hostages were killed in retaliation for the death of a German officer, while a series of acts of resistance were organized across the country. “First in Paris, then on October 20 and 21, 1941 in Nantes and Bordeaux, attacks against German officers were decided,” continues Jean Lavie. On October 21, military adviser Hans Reimers was shot dead in Bordeaux. In application of the hostages code, decided in the sphere around Hitler, 50 hostages were thus shot in Souge. Among them, 35 were taken to the supervised residence center of Mérignac where Communists were interned during the war, and 15 resistance fighters were extracted from Fort du Hâ in Bordeaux, in particular young Gaullists. “
The first shooting at Souge took place a month and a half after the arrival of German troops in Bordeaux. “It was about a Jew who had gesticulated during the passage of German music near the Saint-Jean station in August 1940. He was arrested the same day, tried the next day and shot the next day. The Germans were instructed to be courteous when arriving in Bordeaux, but they also wanted to show that they were holding the situation with a firm hand. “
93% of individuals shot identified
The biggest shooting happened on September 21, 1942, after an attack in Paris. “The Germans had decided to shoot 116 people in retaliation, but in Romainville prison there were only 46 prisoners, so they went to take 70 in Bordeaux, shot at once. “
Today, the association of Souvenir des fusillé de Souge lists 257 people killed in the enclosure of the military camp (but only 256 are honored, the mention “Death for France” having been withdrawn for one of them) . A list that may not be final. “There are still unknowns, the two executed by Operation Frankton are for example honored in Blanquefort, but there are still doubts about the precise place of their execution. “
And if all of Souge’s executed have been identified, the story has yet to be written for several of them. “We have found the birth and death certificates of 93% of them, continues Jean Lavie, but there are still about twenty people for whom we do not know much, and we are still looking for additional information. , although for some it will be very difficult. “