The resistance leaders ultimately gave their lives for their homeland and were shot on 25 February 1944. The WWII memorial committee organised its annual remembrance ceremony on Saturday alongside Amicale Hinzert. This year, Grand Duke Henri and Prime Minister Xavier Bettel attended the ceremony at the site of the concentration camp. Rheinland-Pfalz’s minister-president Malu Dreyer was also in attendance.
The day’s agenda includes a Luxembourgish celebration at the Wercollier monument, followed by a mass held by Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich. The international remembrance ceremony will take place at the same location, with both Bettel and Dreyer holding speeches.
The concentration camp was located 30 kilometres from Luxembourg’s border and was mainly a transit camp towards larger concentration camps. In total, around 13,600 prisoners were kept at the camp. An estimated 1,600 to 1,800 Luxembourgers were sent to Hinzert, with 321 confirmed executed at the camp. The Gestapo sentenced 50 resistance leaders to death, carrying out 25 of those and then killing a subsequent 23 - the 23 honoured on Saturday- as a response to acts of resistance in the Grand Duchy.
