the dean of the Maillé massacre has died

Eugénie Bernard is no more. One of the last survivors of the Maillé massacre in Indre-et-Loire died this Wednesday, November 13, 2024, at the age of 98.

Eugénie Bernard took almost 80 years before speaking about what she had seen on the morning of August 25, 1944 in her native village. “I didn’t want to complain”she modestly advanced The New Republic in 2021.

But of that disastrous day, when 124 inhabitants of the village had perished because of Nazi barbarity, she had forgotten nothing. The fury of the German soldiers. Hours spent hiding behind a pile of wood. The sound of gunshots.

“A cannon had been placed on the heights of the village in order to have an overview and not miss anyone. In the morning, the soldiers, young people of 16 or 17, probably drugged, killed all the inhabitants and animals while screaming like savages.she said again, her memory intact.

Eugénie Bernard was the oldest survivor of the Maillé massacre. Having left to settle in another village in Indre-et-Loire, Marcé-sur-Esves, she did not fail to commemorate this memory every August 25 in Maillé. A return that she always lived with ” pain “.