During genealogical research, Marcelle Mercier-Fages discovered the existence of an uncle who died for France whose name was not engraved on any war memorial.
On November 11, at the end of the ceremonies commemorating the Armistice, Marcelle Mercier-Fages slipped between the officials and descended the steps of the Nîmes war memorial to see the name engraved two weeks earlier, that of Samuel Jeanjean. For her, it was the culmination of more than two years of commitment to the service of memory. “It was a duty, for me and for my descendants.”
Several years ago, Marcelle Mercier-Fages began genealogical research, she found traces of her family in the Cévennes back to the 17th century, and followed in the footsteps of her Reunion family as far as India. But a mystery was more recent… She also discovered that her uncle Samuel Jeanjean, born in 1898, obtained the Legion of Honor for feats of arms during the First World War from which he returned gassed and was declared dead for the France, after being killed by the Germans in 1944.
“A story I didn’t know”
Little by little, she manages to reconstruct this tragic ending. “My aunt always told me that he had been killed by the Germans, but never went into detail. I found myself faced with a story that I didn’t know. I went out of my way to hands to find his file”she explains. “It was a big enigma but genealogists are persevering”smiles her husband, Alain Mercier.
The railway worker left for the Cévennes after the bombing of Nîmes. On August 3, 1944, he was arrested for an inspection by the FFI near Florac. “As he presented his personal papers, […] a German column, coming from Mende, debouched precipitously”notes the information sheet from the General Secretariat of Veterans Affairs. The Nazis open fire. “Only Jeanjean was […] seriously injured by several bullets. In his death certificate, Doctor Rouvière specifies: “multiple abdominal perforations by German machine gun bullets”.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me about it?”asks Marcelle Mercier-Fages, who knew nothing about this story and wants to know on which war memorial her name was engraved. “I looked for his name in Plantiers, where he was born, he wasn’t there. I turned to Nîmes, where he lived and where he was buried, he wasn’t there either.” She came into contact with several other genealogy enthusiasts. No trace… She then contacted the Order of the Legion of Honor and launched into a new fight to have this story engraved in stone.
After a refusal from Gatuzières, near Florac, she turned to Nîmes. Through Pascal Coget, of the National Veterans Office, she came into contact with Monique Boissière, municipal councilor responsible for the Armed Forces and the fighting world. “You have to do research with the prefecture, put together a file in particular with the birth certificate indicating death for France. Then the town hall takes care of it. For veterans, this is very rare. On the other hand, we We recently registered the names of two deaths for France in external operations in Mali.explains the elected official, for whom it is important that families continue to keep this memory alive. “It’s very good, it means we don’t forget them.”
In October, the name Samuel Jeanjean joined that of the thousands of Nîmes who died for France. “I am proud that his name is finally on a monument. I would never have given up. I had no right to leave him in the wild, after what he had experienced.”
