Almost eighty-one years old. Almost eighty-one years since he crossed the gates of the only concentration camp in France managed by the Nazis. On November 26, 1943, Henri Mosson discovered Struthof, in Alsace, despite himself. At the age of 19, the young man had just been sentenced to death for acts of resistance. The camp commander had gone further.
“He told us: 'You are thugs. You entered here through the big door and you will come out through the chimney,'” remembers the now centenarian (101 years old), still there. Able to bear witness and maintain memory.
“Lifespan was on average 90 days”
At the Natzwiller-Struthof camp (Bas-Rhin), where Emmanuel Macron will pay his respects on Saturday on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Strasbourg, “my number was 6290”, he said, before repeating it in German, language whose knowledge saved him from certain death. “We had our numbers to sew on our clothes but I sewed it wrong. I then received the biggest slap of my life. I said to the SS man “Warum? (why?)”, he understood that I spoke German. I was then assigned to disinfecting the clothes with which the detainees arrived. “It was a bit of a hideout. »
“For the others, those who did not speak German, the lifespan was on average 90 days. I saw some who died in three days,” adds the former prisoner classified as “Nacht und Nebel” (night and fog), like all political opponents doomed to disappear without a trace.
Every day, the prisoners collected their dead who, too, had to be present at the roll calls held in the camp square. They “brought the corpses back on their backs”, remembers Henri Mosson, with apparent coldness. “We are becoming absolutely insensitive,” apologizes the man who is one of the last Struthof survivors still alive.
Engaged in the Resistance with friends from the age of 17, he was arrested in a maquis near Dijon (Côte d'Or) and sentenced to death on June 29, 1943. He then became “acquainted with the rigor” of the Nazis, said -he deadpans: in prison, his torturers hang him by his hands for days on end. “In the morning, my feet barely touched the ground. In the evening, they hit well. »
He weighed 38 kg when he returned home
He escaped the firing squad and was sent to the fort of Romainville (Seine-Saint-Denis). “It was a hostage reserve,” from which the Nazis drew for their executions in retaliation for the assassinations of German soldiers. There too, he escapes death. “Spend the day. “Resist” was his motivation, he explains. “I always had hope. »
At the end of August 1944, as the Allies approached, the Nazis evacuated the Struthof. The detainees are transferred to other camps, ending up at Munich-Allach. “One day, we woke up and there were no more guards,” remembers Henri Mosson.
But, on his return to France, it is “not jubilation” that awaits him. “People took us for curious animals.” “I weighed 38 kg when I returned” to Burgundy. “We only had kohlrabi broth to eat. In the end, we only had nettles in broth. »
Never mind. He rebuilt himself and, passionate about motorsport, he became technical controller of Formula 1, meeting the greatest like Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. “I’ve been around the world three times,” he says proudly.
Our file on the Second World War
All his life, he passed on memories to his four children, six grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren, but also to the approximately “200 schools” where he worked. “Even in Germany.” “We need to inform young people. We don’t know what could happen,” he said. “You can have the Russians in two months, it can start again. You have seen Ukraine…” On January 5, 2025, the eternal resistance fighter who resides in Dijon (Côte d’Or) will celebrate his 101st birthday, a milestone he is sure to pass. “I have always been lucky. »
