In the minds of the Germans, they are hostages. A week after the Allied landing, the occupiers arrested personalities from Haute-Marne who were sent to the Neuengamme concentration camp, but in a neighborhood separate from the other deportees. Between June 12 and 15, 1944, they questioned the mayor of Saint-Dizier, René Rollin, his collaborators Henri Ragot and Lucien Remy; in Chaumont, the police commissioner Jean Eglenne, the merchant Jean Lamy, the civil servants Roland Felder and Henri David were arrested; in Montribourg, it is the teacher Fernand Coquard. Outside the department, the Haut-Marnais natives Paul Drouet (Rimaucourt) and Marcel Cressot (Varennes-sur-Amance), university professors in Nancy, were also arrested.
First maquis attack
The first maquis were set up in the north of the department, under the aegis of the FN: one, around June 12, in Sauvage-Magny, the other, from June 13, towards Longeville-sur-la -Laine, by volunteers from Bettancourt-la-Ferrée, Saint-Dizier, Marnaval, Villiers-en-Lieu (the core of the Mauguet maquis).
In the West, one of the first Haut-Marne maquis, that of Laferté-sur-Aube, was attacked on June 15, 1944. Two FFI, Louis Billette and André Gilson, were killed, their comrades retreated to Aube. . In the village, a resident, Michel Maxime, was injured and the mayor, Pierre Champagne, was arrested. The day before, ten high school students from Dijon arrived at Chalindrey station, to form a maquis in Haute-Marne, and the next day, a skirmish in the forest near Bugnières cost the life of a man from the Leffonds camp, Claude Penègre (read here -against), while Raymond Gourlin was taken prisoner.
Outside of Haute-Marne, adjutant François Quilliard, from Frampas, fell among his men in the Pyrenees (June 16, 1944), and master corporal Jean Masselot, born in Saucourt-sur-Rognon, was killed in combat in the Vercors (June 15). In the Landes, Langrois Pierre Parisot is arrested and then deported.
L.F.
