The Ban Saint-Jean camp in Moselle (F)
On Saturday 29 February 2020, our association “For peace and against war” invited Mr Gabriel Becker, from Lorraine, to present the Nazi camp of Ban St-Jean in Moselle (F) on the 20th “Salon du Livre et des cultures” in Luxembourg. This camp is in fact a mass grave containing the remains of 20,000 Soviet prisoners of the Second World War.
Before giving the floor to the guest, the President of the Association, Mr Claude Pantaleoni, introduced Mr Becker and his research work within the AFU (French-Ukrainian Association), which is responsible for the rehabilitation of the camp.
The mass grave of Ban St-Jean is in Moselle, near Boulay, about one hour from Luxembourg. Gabriel Becker, a retired German teacher, has been researching testimonies, archive documents and memorabilia for twenty years to save the history of this Soviet prison camp from oblivion. He is vice president and co-founder of the Franco-Ukrainian Association (AFU), which works to preserve the camp.
Becker has published four books in which he explains the drama of the last world war and the ups and downs of the camp’s rehabilitation.
Nazi transit camp
The speaker began by explaining that the local population did not want to deal with this camp after the war and did everything they could to forget the place, partly because the people were worried about their survival and were busy with the difficult organisation of their daily lives.
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