291 new names on the Franco-Swiss war memorial

The Franco-Swiss war memorial in Geneva was inaugurated a century ago, in 1924, with the names of 818 French conscripts and 42 Swiss volunteers who had not returned from the Great War.

This November 11, 2024, the “Mémoires” association, in close collaboration with the Consulate General of France, inaugurated several steles, solemnly attached to the original monument. They bear the names of 291 soldiers of the Great War, born in Geneva or in the Geneva region, found and identified by the association after extensive research.

These men, mobilized French people or Swiss volunteers, were absent for reasons which still escape the historians of the War Memorial adjoining the Consulate General of France in Geneva. In a relative emergency, in the aftermath of the war, the bearers of this community tribute obviously did not have access to modern research tools and digitized archives.

“The “Mémoires” association set itself the mission of finding these “forgotten by history”, these soldiers and officers whose existence astride a border had perhaps confused those who had to count them in 1924, explains Nicolas Ducimetière, its president. Today, the peaceful undergrowth of Verdun, the Vosges ridges, continue to reveal the remains, often anonymous, of those lost in combat. There are also numerous fighters, lost in the archives, waiting for their names to be found. This tribute throughout time is due to those who sacrificed everything.

The work of the “Mémoires” association and its researchers Marion Gros and Thomas Cornaz, thus makes it possible to carry out not a repair, but an unprecedented gesture of memory in Switzerland, or even beyond, which aims to replace lives taken away by the war at the center of a memory on a human scale and in constant evolution. If the addition of a plaque at the foot of local monuments or the construction of new memorials is a known practice, the fact of continuing, while respecting the original structure, a work of remembrance on such a scale is much less common.

“They were French from French-speaking Switzerland, they were Swiss and had made the choice to engage with France in the defense of its freedom,” said the Consul General of France Clément Leclerc, during the ceremony. These names are as many broken lives as voices that speak to us through stone. They tell us that living outside the borders of your country does not mean giving up loving it. They tell us about the friendship between Switzerland and France. They urge us to tirelessly seek peace.”

“Switzerland has been preserved from the horrors of this conflict, this Der des ders which did not respond to its optimistic promises,” said Christina Kitsos, mayor of Geneva. We have only experienced indirect repercussions here and undermined national cohesion. But our ancestors saw their companions, numerous, fall away from their families. Those who returned did not return unscathed, forever marked in their souls, some mutilated in their bodies. Today we pay tribute to them.”

“Mémoires” intends to continue its research in order to better document these 291 individuals. If a university conference is planned in order to bring together specialists and researchers, “Mémoires” also intends to call on the memories of Geneva families, collect all the intangible substance of these routes cut down at the beginning of the last century and restore them in a quality work in the next years.