FLEURY-DEVANT-DOUAUMONT Military Cemetery: Print

(Meusse département, Lorrine région)

Since the end of the Battle of Verdun in 1916, the town has not had a single inhabitant. In fact, it is one of the six French villages completely destroyed during the First World War that have not been reconstructed. The area around the municipality was contaminated by corpses, explosives and poisonous gas, so no farmers could take up their work any longer. Before the war Fleury was a village of 422 that lived off agriculture and woodworking. Today, it is a wooded area next to the Verdun Memorial. Arrows guide visitors to where the street and houses used to be. [January 2008]

  • Verdun Memorial: On the night between 6th and 7th May 2004, the monument at the cemetery at Fleury-Devant-Douaumont commemorating the Jewish soldiers who had died in the Battle of Verdun in World War I, was desecrated. Anti-Semitic graffiti including the words "Heil Hitler" and swastikas were daubed on the monument. French President Jacques Chirac strongly condemned the act saying: "These despicable and irresponsible acts affect the entire nation, through the memory of the Jewish sons of the French nation who died for France". [January 2008]