Montigny-lès-Vesoul

Geography

History

In this month of July 1944, the German always occupies the department but the population is not unaware of that the allied troops unloaded on June 6th on the coasts of the English Channel progress slowly but surely towards Paris. For all, the release is nothing any more but one question of month. The moral one obviously feels some and resistance, after having boxed very hard blows during the winter 1943-1944, was reconstituted and is shown increasingly aggressive. Thus, on July 13rd at the evening, resistant, surprised in the village of Grattery, kills two soldiers of the guardroom and can get clear. The following day, a third soldier, out of guard in the trench of the railway between Vaivre and Grattery, is killed with rifle shots.

In Montigny-les-Vesoul, youth organizes on July 14th a noisy demonstration which crosses the village by singing the International one and the Marseillaise, Tricolor at the head, and marks the stop in front of the war memorial. Were the Germans informed of this demonstration? It is probable. Sentinels keep the Vesoul-Gray railway and take the hundred step with one kilometer of the village. They could not hear with difficulty. At all events, two days later, at 6 o'clock in the morning, the German soldiers and the cossacks framed by Feldgendarmes de Vesoul encircle the village of Grattery. All the houses are excavated and from each one of them one removes stations TSF, the bicycles, the cash, the jewels, the linen of value and the food. The spoils are piled up at once in a truck and all the men gathered at the exit of the borough, side Rupt de Vellemoz. Finally, after sorting, twenty-two of them are put in a state of arrest. Then the initial convoy separates in two columns. One by Scye will invest Montigny by the plate, the other, by the road of bottom, closes the bow net. With 10:00, surrounding is carried out. André Perrot, who seeks to flee through the meadow, is killed. The Germans proceed as they did in Grattery a few hours earlier: plundering and gathering of the men. Led vis-a-vis to the wall of the Gury property, the prisoners will remain there, the arms raised, under the sun, during four hours. The Boussard farm, from where the German officers claim, which is false, to have received shots at the time of their arrival at the village, is burnt. Fire is communicated to the barn of Aurélien Quiclet. At Boussard, one distinctly hears cracklings which seem well to be explosions of cartridges. The Germans howl. They hold already a “terrorist” since Emile Boussard belongs to the stopped people. This one, certain maintaining of its fate, tries an escape but it is cut down almost at once with the machine-gun. Around 2 p.m., the sorting having been made, he remains twenty-six prisoners who thorough in a bus and are taken along, as those of Grattery which waited in a truck outside Montigny, at the prison of Vesoul. Finally, after a few days or a few weeks of captivity intersected with muscular interrogations, fifteen are released individually but Constant Langrognet, weakened by its captivity, must be hospitalized and dies at the hospital of Vesoul on August 15th. Henri Pirolley, of Chariez, dies in the prison of Belfort and the ten others, off-set and moved camps in camps, will never re-examine France. The prisoners of Grattery will also regain their village except five who will be off-set and who will die in Germany.

These arrests find, obviously, their source in the death of the two German soldiers on July 13rd. To be already intervened in Grattery with the autumn 1943, the Germans know that there is a pocket of resistance. The summary and ashamed execution of a couple of old people on October 26th, 1943, Fleutiaux, could only reinforce their conviction. According to any probability, the operation carried out against Grattery, delayed one day by the absence due to disease of the lieutenant of Feldgendarmerie de Vesoul and replaced with the foot raised by its counterpart of Lure, included in its Montigny objectives because the village had been just announced by the manifestation of July 14th. The Germans struck randomly, not holding any list of suspects. The decision then to off-set or release results obviously from the information obtained during the interrogations led to the prison. It is there that it is necessary to seek the truth and not among supposed denouncers or chatterers that no survey carried out after the release made it possible to identify.

July 16th, 1944, the Germans killed there BOUSSART Emile (40 years) and PERROT André (24 years), in front of women and children. They sent in deportation, the same day, DUPUY Edmond (40 years), DYREZ Ladislas (44 years), FRANÇOIS Raoul (23 years), HARBONNET André (23 years), KELLER Jean (32 years), LARCHEY Gilbert (22 years), MILLOT Jean (26 years), PAUFERT Marcel (33 years), PELTIER Jean (22 years), RICHARDOT Marc (19 years), LANGROGNET Constant (58 years). They will not return from there.

Administration

Demography

Places and monuments

Abbey of the noble ladies

Personalities related to the commune

See too

Common of the Haute-Saône

External bonds

Internet site of Montigny-lès-Vesoul
Montigny-lès-Vesoul on the site of the national geographical Institute
Montigny-lès-Vesoul on the site of INSEE
Montigny-lès-Vesoul on the site of Quid
Localization of Montigny-lès-Vesoul on a chart of France and communes bordering
Plane on Montigny-lès-Vesoul on Mapquest

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