WAR CRIMES - Rouen, 9 June 1940

On the morning of 9 June 1940, the Wehrmacht's 5. Panzerdivision entered Rouen.

A few days later, in the square of the Musée des Antiquités, the bodies of two Black men were discovered by municipal services. The following day, not far away, in the gardens of a property on the rue de Bihorel, the bodies of seventeen men murdered by German troops were found. Fifteen days later, one final body was uncovered there. Civilians or military personnel, only half of them could be identified, but all shared the distinction of being African or from the Antilles. And all had been rounded up and executed by the Germans as soon as they entered the city.

This tragedy had until now remained largely unknown.

Only a few mentions in works covering the period alluded to it, without however agreeing on the number of victims or their identities. For the first time, research has been carried out to try to understand this event and to restore its full significance within the tragedy experienced by African soldiers and civilians during the French campaign of May–June 1940.

The research conducted for this work gave rise in 2020–2021 to a significant memorial project in schools across the city of Rouen, the results of which are presented in this volume.

Prefaces by MM. Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, Mayor of Rouen, and Pascal Blanchard, Vice-President of the Achac and associate researcher at CRHIM/UNIL.