They were shot down in 1944, during World War II, by enemies of France. One by a Czech collaborator on the Baume bridge in Sisteron, the other by a soldier of the Wehrmacht, the German army, a few meters away. Two crossed destinies which are remembered each year during a commemorative ceremony.
Tuesday April 30, at 11:30 a.m., the discreet little stele placed on the singing fountain of Faubourg de la Baume will be the gathering place for a tribute which is always moving. Here, on June 6 and 8, 1944, while hundreds of thousands of men were surging onto the Normandy beaches, two men died, one having come to free the other, detained at the citadel.
What happened ? It is June 6, 1944. Commander Abel Wilmart, 58 years old, one of the three leaders of the Secret Army in Sisteron, must lead an attack with Roger David and Kieffer against the citadel in order to free 111 prisoners from the Germans. But they were denounced, and Abel Wilmart was killed on the Baume bridge by two Czechs (one of whom was a Gestapo interpreter at the Feldgendarmerie then at the Hôtel de la Poste). The attempt to free the prisoners fails. Abel Wilmart, born in the north of France, came to die under the Sisteron sun…
A hundred prisoners leave the citadel
Two days later, a second attempt to release the detainees from the citadel is scheduled. Led by the Secret Army, the Francs-tireurs et Partisans (FTP) climbed to the citadel and succeeded in freeing the 111 prisoners who fled in all directions in small groups. They leave towards Mollard, Les Combes, Ribiers or Laragne, via Collet and La Marquise…
