It was at Mont-Valérien, located in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), that the Nazis executed the largest number of patriots during World War II. Today, 1,008 names are engraved on the memorial created by artist Pascal Convert.
The Mont-Valérien Fort in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine) is a major site of national remembrance. In 1960, General de Gaulle, standing on the very site of the Nazi crimes, dedicated a memorial in honor of the 1,008 Resistance fighters who were executed by firing squad between 1941 and 1944 while defending France. All of those executed were men. The Germans reserved the guillotine, in Germany, for female Resistance fighters. Twenty-three members of the FTP-M.O.I. “Affiche Rouge” group were executed at Mont-Valérien on February 21, 1944. Olga Bancic was guillotined in Stuttgart.
The Nazis executed, above all, the communists, whom they considered their most dangerous opponents. The selection of hostages was political; 90 percent of them were, according to Nazi terminology, “Judeo-Bolsheviks” (opponents who were both Jews and Communists). The priority was to eliminate the most determined opponents of Nazism.
17% of those executed were Jewish, most of them immigrants, even though Jews made up only 0.8% of the population. Among the victims were members of the underground communist Jewish press: Israël (Moshe) Bursztyn, the former manager of *La Naïe Presse*, was one of the 95 hostages taken on December 15, 1941; Rudolf Zeiler, the printer for *Unzer Wort* (*Our Word*), was shot there on December 19. The following year, editors Mounié Nadler and Joseph Bursztyn were also shot.
The number of foreigners who were executed (29 nationalities) is much higher, as a percentage, than their share of France’s total population. All age groups are represented, but those under 40 make up the majority.
The mass shootings were intended to silence any opposition to the Nazis’ repressive measures by instilling a climate of terror, but they only served to galvanize the will for Resistance and rally the entire French population against the Occupiers.
A Grove of Liberty honors both the French Revolution, which granted French Jews equal civil rights, and the memory of the Jewish Resistance fighters and hostages executed by the Nazis.
References:
— Fontaine, Thomas, and Denis Peschanski, 2018, *Collaboration: Vichy, Paris, Berlin, 1940–1945*. Published by Tallandier/National Archives/Ministry of Defense.
— Serge Klarsfeld, Léon Tsévery, 2010, *The 1,007 People Executed at Mont-Valérien, Including 174 Jews*. Association of the Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France.
