The tomb of Erich Justitz, resistance fighter killed in Corrèze in 1944, found in Strasbourg!

Laurent Chassaing saw his work as a historian materialize with the unveiling of the plaque paying tribute to the mysterious Czech Erich Justitz killed on June 9, 1944 on the Beaulieu Bridge.

In 1938, Erich Justiz was 28 years old and left his native country. Jewish, he fled Nazi persecution, and in 1940 he found himself in Beaulieu where he joined the maquis. The City of Beaulieu had recognized his sacrifice. Missing the mention “Death for France”, granted since 1948, but not visible on the plaque which pays homage to him. It’s been done since Saturday, September 18.

Why Beaulieu, in Corrèze, almost forgot a Czech resistance fighter killed by the SS of Das Reich on June 9, 1944

A “imperative need for history “

Laurent Chassaing, during this ceremony chaired by the representative of the State, in the person of Philippe Laycuras, sub-prefect of Brive, saw this as obvious. “Because it is indeed history that we owe to be brought together today. This imperative need for history, this powerful river of which no partisan company or culture of annulment or even of deconstruction, can go up the course of it to change the content of the silts that must be dug, turned over, excavated. “

Drama: the tomb found

Laurent Chassaing had until then been resigned, because the trace of the burial was nowhere to be found… But, twist! It has just been located in the Israelite cemetery of Strasbourg-Cronenbourg. Found in the Tulle archives, a document attests to the exhumation of the late Erich Justitz on October 14, 1958, at the request of his sister and the tomb does indeed exist in a square of honor in this cemetery, even if the stele is eroded by time and almost illegible.

Jean Gargne, 92, present at the ceremony, still living in the village of Lapeyre commune of Camps-Saint-Mathurin, remembers very well those Czech resistance fighters who gave him lessons. Moreover, there is still a meadow called “Czech meadow” where the resistance fighters took refuge, according to Jean-michel Delpeuch, representative of the National Union of Veterans.

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