Chapelle des Martyrs

On September 8, resistance fighters fired on two German tanks in the village. One was set on fire, the other escaped battered. Two soldiers were killed. The next day the Germans hastily organized a collective punishment. They doused houses with phosphorus and burned them to the ground. Thirty hostages were taken to the courtyard of Baclin Castle. The ten youngest were taken to a shed, machine-gunned in the legs and burned alive. Their charred corpses were buried together because they were unrecognizable and too entwined. André Dartevelle and Francis Dujardin made a documentary in 1992 about the inability to come to terms with these events: Marcourt ou la mémoire secrète.

This memorial chapel was placed at the location of the burnt down barn.

Above the entrance gate of the chapel is the following text:
Aux victimes de la paroisse 1940-1945

In the small chapel there is an altar with a memorial stone behind it with the following text with nine names of civilians who died here:
Ici
le 9 septembre 1944
les nazis en retraite
ont fusille et brule
Joseph Brackman
Jules Danoiseau
Joseph Dubuisson
Jules Gillet
Adelin Selecque
Cyrille Selecque
Adolphe Scius
Jules Soreil
Alexandre Peree

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Source

• Text: R. Bronkhorst
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck (1, 4, 5), R. Bronkhorst (2023) (2, 3)
• Bel-Memorial