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The Saint-Genis-Laval Massacre or Fort de Côte-Lorette Massacre was the execution of about 120 prisoners of war at Fort de Côte-Lorette, Saint-Genis-Laval, on 20 August 1944.
Déposition du prisonnier du fort Montluc avant le massacre de Saint-Genis-Laval du 20 août 1944 (page 1).jpg, Statement of a prisoner in Montluc prison before the massacre (page 1)
Déposition du prisonnier du fort Montluc avant le massacre de Saint-Genis-Laval du 20 août 1944 (page 2).jpg, Statement of a prisoner in Montluc prison before the massacre (page 2)
Déposition du prisonnier du fort Montluc avant le massacre de Saint-Genis-Laval du 20 août 1944 (page 3).jpg, Statement of a prisoner in Montluc prison before the massacre (page 3)
The Saint-Genis-Laval Massacre or Fort de Côte-Lorette Massacre was the execution of about 120 prisoners of war at Fort de Côte-Lorette, Saint-Genis-Laval, on 20 August 1944.
Context
After the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 andOperation Dragoon
Operation Dragoon (initially Operation Anvil) was the code name for the landing operation of the Allied invasion of Provence (Southern France) on 15August 1944. Despite initially designed to be executed in conjunction with Operation Overlord, th ...
on 15 August, the defeat of the Third Reich was imminent and the violence of the Nazi occupying forces intensified. According to Henri Amouroux, Montluc prison was a favoured place for the German forces to bring prisoners for execution. In the months preceding the liberation of Lyon, hundreds of prisoners were arbitrarily executed, including about a hundred Jews at Bron airfield.
Events
On the morning of 20 August 1944 the Lyon ''Sicherheitspolizei
The ''Sicherheitspolizei'' ( en, Security Police), often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the ...
'', under the direction of Werner Knab and Klaus Barbie, took about 120 prisoners from Montluc prison. They were brought in two buses, accompanied by six cars containing Germans and members of the ''Milice française
The ''Milice française'' (French Militia), generally called ''la Milice'' (literally ''the militia'') (), was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy regime (with German aid) to help fight against the Fr ...
''. They went to Fort de Côte-Lorette, where they arrived at 8:30 AM. The prisoners were shot in small groups inside the house. According to French Nazi collaborator Max Payot, toward the end of the massacre the piles of bodies were 6 feet in height; the perpetrators stood on these piles to silence the victims' groaning. René Wehrlen, one of the prisoners and a malgre-nous, was able to escape and was not recaptured.
After the shooting, the executioners burned the house down using gasoline and phosphorus, and blew up what remained. Many of the victims were local members of the French Resistance, including Daisy Georges-Martin, François Boursier, and Roger Radisson.
Aftermath
In retaliation, and with the goal of saving the thousand or so prisoners at Montluc prison, Yves Farge, Commissioner of the Republic, ordered the execution of 84 German prisoners being held by the French Forces of the Interior in Haute-Savoie. A letter was sent to Werner Knab to make it known that any further execution of French prisoners would be met with the execution of more German prisoners, including a chief of police who was captured by the French Forces of the Interior in Loire. On the evening of 23 August the prefectAndré Boutemy
André Boutemy (21 December 1905 – 14 July 1959) was a French lawyer, senior administrator and then politician.
He served under the Vichy government during the occupation of France in World War II (1939–45), and as a result was barred from pol ...
handed the keys to Montluc prison to Yves Farge. The prison was liberated eleven hours before the liberation of Lyon, which happened on 3 September 1944. 44 German prisoners were executed at Annecy
Annecy ( , ; frp, Èneci or ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It lies on the northern tip of Lake Annecy, south of Geneva, Switzerland. Nicknamed ...
on 28 August, and 40 more at a house in Habère-Lullin
Habère-Lullin (; frp, Âbèro d’Avâl) is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. It lies on the river Menoge, in the ''Vallée Verte''.
Population
See also
*Communes of the Ha ...
on 2 September; the latter execution happened in the place where the Nazis had killed 25 youths on Christmas Eve in the Habère-Lullin Massacre.
On 21 August a team of morticians from the French Red Cross arrived to remove and identify the bodies from the massacre. They laid 88 coffins to rest, but the exact number of victims is not known; some of the coffins contained only bone fragments and debris. As of 2014, the work of identifying the bodies is still ongoing; a little more than 80 bodies have been identified.
On 22 August Cardinal Gerlier
Pierre-Marie Gerlier (14 January 1880 – 17 January 1965) was a French Cardinal (Catholicism), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archdiocese of Lyon, Archbishop of Lyon from 1937 until his death, was Primate of Gaul and was ...
expressed his indignation to Knab in a letter where he called it an "indignity to Christian society and to simple humanity to put people to death in this manner", and said that "whoever bore the responsibility would be forever dishonoured in the eyes of humanity". The funeral was held at Saint-Genis-Laval on 23 August in the presence of Cardinal Gerlier, even though the Germans still occupied the town.
Each year, the Commune of Saint-Genis-Laval commemorates the massacre at the end of August in an official ceremony.
Notes
:1.Original French: "indigne d’une civilisation chrétienne ou simplement humaine, de mettre à mort de cette manière" :2.Original French: "ceux qui en portent la responsabilité sont à jamais déshonorés aux yeux de l’humanité".References