Eight decades later, we still do not know the fate of at least five Haut-Marne resistance fighters arrested by the Germans in 1944. Among them, Chaumontais André Guignard.
In 1988, almost 45 years after his arrest, the departmental veterans service of Haute-Marne was still trying to find out the fate of André Guignard. But Arolsen, the German organization in charge of the archives of Nazi repression, could only admit its inability to “find the trace of Mr. Guignard”. A trace that his now deceased wife, Germaine Guignard (née Petit), continued to search for until her death in 1988.
Who was André Guignard? A Toulouse native by birth (in 1912), having grown up in Picardy then married in Chaumont with a Nogentaise. A great resistance fighter, known as “Lieutenant Dédé”. What Germaine Guignard was able to know is that her husband “during the years 1942-43 and 1944 made frequent trips to the free zone then to Dijon and Troyes”. On June 3, 1944, he left Chaumont to go underground. Responsible for the eastern sector of Chaumont, he was taken prisoner near Auberive on August 23, 1944, while the police officer Robert Ingret who accompanied him was killed. And then? Guignard and his driver, Marc Bongrain, “were taken to Auberive Abbey with their van where they were seen by residents until the evening », writes Colonel Emmanuel de Grouchy in a report. An inmate, Albin Jacot, claims to have seen them at Langres prison until August 27, 1944 in the afternoon.
Not cited by a witness
The most logical – and most commonly accepted – hypothesis is that Guignard and Bongrain were transferred under good escort that day to Chaumont with the other Langres detainees, then that they traveled by train Belfort from where, on August 29, 1944, they were deported to the Neuengamme camp. But this has never been confirmed. For several reasons. First: there is no official list of deportees from the Belfort train. The only one that exists was reconstituted by the Foundation for the Memory of the Deportation, and Guignard does not appear there, neither under his name nor under the name of the false identity card. Second: there were very few survivors among the thirty Haut-Marnais deported on August 29, 1944. One of them, Raymond Gourlin, knew Guignard well in the Leffonds maquis. However, he never mentions it in his testimony, which is nevertheless very specific about the Haut-Marnais. Enough to doubt the presence of “Lieutenant Dédé” in this convoy.
Seen in Lorraine
Therefore, there are many hypotheses. We can certainly assume that Guignard was indeed deported to Neuengamme and that he never returned, perhaps the victim of the Allied bombing of the ships transporting the deportees in the Bay of Lübeck, at the beginning of May 1945. But nothing prevents to think that he could also have been executed during the journey, perhaps during an escape attempt, either between Chaumont and Belfort, or between Belfort and Neuengamme.
Another possibility which cannot be ruled out: rather than by train, André Guignard could have been taken, in another (road?) convoy, to another destination. An unverified testimony indicates its possible presence in Meurthe-et-Moselle. Germaine Guignard even heard that he had been seen on September 3, 1944, “near Schirmeck”another concentration camp. But here again, his trace does not appear in the archives.
For the sake of justice, both André Guignard and Marc Bongrain are considered to have died on August 24, 1944. Bongrain's name, however, appears on a memorial to the French people who died in Neuengamme.
LF
The missing and the unknown
Three other Haut-Marne resistance fighters have been missing since 1944. Michel Chement, from Paris, was taken prisoner on 1is September 1944 at the attack on Andilly station. Maurice Blanchard, from Arc-en-Barrois, was captured around August 20, 1944 in Boudreville (Côte-d'Or) and perhaps taken to Chaumont. Sergeant Raymond Chevallier, from Saint-Blin, was taken on September 8, 1944 in Prez-sous-Lafauche, at the same time as Hubert Mayer who died during deportation after being interned at Struthof.
Conversely, two men whose bodies were found on August 27, 1944 in Coupray and on August 1is September 1944 in Chaumont (Saint-Roch woods) have never been identified.
