Le 15 octobre 2010, à Buchenwald, ont été apposées dans l’antichambre du four crématoire, conjointement avec nos amis du Special Forces Club britannique, deux plaques à la mémoire des officiers du SOE, du Secret Intelligence Service,  des officiers ” TR jeune ” des Services Spéciaux militaires français et du B.C.R.A., déportés ensemble en août 1944 et exécutés dans ce camp fin septembre – début octobre de la même année. Hommage également à nos 201 Morts pour la France en déportation ainsi qu’à celles et à ceux qui sont revenus de cet enfer en 1945.
Cette cérémonie qui avait le soutien, pour la France, du Secrétariat d’Etat à la Défense et aux Anciens Combattants  ainsi que de l’ONAC, est une manifestation de notre rattachement pérenne au Monde Combattant ainsi que le scellement de nos relations avec le très discret Special Forces Club ( SFC).

 

BUCHENWALD: OPENING ADDRESS The two plaques which we have come here to dedicate today commemorate the sacrifices made 66 years ago by 30 young officers of the British and French Special Services in the cause of freedom in the Second World War. They were of various nationalities: French, British, Canadian, Belgian and Dutch. But they had a few important things in common.

All of them spoke French very well. All had volunteered to act as agents of their various services inside occupied France in order to provide support for the French Resistance Forces or to gather intelligence for the Allies. All of them had been sent into France from England – some more than once. All of them undertook their missions willingly, knowing that they risked torture and death if they were captured, because each of them for his own reasons wanted to play a part in the liberation of France from the Nazi occupiers. They were captured in different areas of France, some being betrayed. They were imprisoned and interrogated in France, often brutally tortured, and, as the Allies advanced through France, they were collected together and sent by train to Germany in mid-August 1944. After a long and dangerous journey in dreadful conditions, they were brought to Buchenwald and kept prisoner in Block 17 under a particularly harsh regime. They nevertheless maintained their dignity and morale, supported by each other’s company, their common experiences and sense of purpose, and by the presence in the Camp of colleagues who had been inmates for some time.

Finally, they were murdered without any trial, as the Allies approached the borders of Germany. The first 16…