Build for the 146 Reg. d’Infanterie de Fortesse which manned the Maginot Line. It was build for long stay, and included relax rooms, cinema etc. A village on its own. In 1940 used for a few months to house French prisoners of war. One of these was the later French president (Sgt.) Mitterand. |He escaped from this camp. After operation Barbarossa the camp was used to house prisoners of war from that campaign. Due to malnutrition the death rate was high. After the war 204 mass graves were found with an estimated 20.000 dead. The victims were reburied in a War Cemetery (mass grave) in the village of Boulay. The Ukraine community in France paid for a memorial to their 3.600 victims buried in the mass grave. Of the camp itself nothing remains. The officers living quarters still remain. Stripped of anything useful, it is an amazing ghost village.
Marco, Did the USSR or the Russian Federation ever acknowledge the losses here? Curious that you added this, as it raises a question to me that the Russians and Ukrainians were separated? Thanks
Hi David, Information is scarce and in French or German only. I think I need to rephrase after a second study of the text and memorils in the cemetery. I think now it is a mass grave of the approx. 20.000 but that only the Ukraine placed memorials. That is the memorial in the cemetery and on the former camp site.
Marco, Thank you. I would have been surprised if the USSR and Russia had acknowledged the deaths of WW2 POWs. David
