European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

The German officers all left for Mont Valérien, the only place they felt safe.

The Liberation Committee was installed.

Mont Valérien is a fort from the time before the Paris Commune.

There the resistance fighters were shot. Each time the resistance attacked the German troops.

General Stüplinen ordered for every killed German, one hundred resistance fighters should be executed.

We identified 1015 corpses of people who had been shot between 1941 and 1944.

It was an execution place.

The Germans couldn’t move anymore, as all the streets leading there were barricaded by the resistance.

Some Germans were in the Paris water works. They had intended to blow up the water basins, but they were caught.

So there was a prisoner exchange between those Germans

and the last prisoners the Germans had taken, and had no nerve to shoot.

That is how we found out exactly what had happened to Louis Meunier.

Back to the Nazis in Mont Valérien: They refused to give themselves up to the resistance.

One of them said they would only give themselves up to the regular army.

Our commander went to see Colonel Rémy from the Leclerc Division,

who had been quarantined in the Bois de Boulogne with his brigade.

Colonel Rémy went up to the fort and they gave themselves in.

I didn’t have much time to enjoy the liberation.

During the transition period, I was responsible for the security of Raymond Barbet,

who was responsible for the resistance of the railroad workers.