Fresnes Prison

This prison was used during the German occupation to detain, among others, French resistance fighters, Allied secret agents and commandos. Executions also took place here during that period. After the liberation of France, French collaborators were imprisoned here.

World War I
During the First World War, numerous Belgian soldiers were imprisoned in Fresnes.
On April 24, 1916, Flemish Member of Parliament Alfons van de Perre, concerned by many complaints, wrote to Father Georges Rutten: "Three thousand Belgian soldiers are waiting for you in the prisons of France. Most of them are Flemish. Many do not know what they have been sentenced for. were, and certainly not for how long. They perish in the prisons with the filth. They don't get enough food for half of them. Most of them have become consumptives. Many have gone mad. Many have died! Abandoned! It's awful. Our soldiers are becoming treated better in Germany." Van de Perre, who was given permission to ascertain the facts on the spot, denounced this situation in his well-known interpellation of May 1919 in parliament. He relied, among other things, on a report by a member of the Comité de patronage des condamnés libérés, General Nelis, who visited the prisons in 1915 and found that 2,500 to 3,000 soldiers were imprisoned there, more than 70% of whom were Flemish. About 300 could be considered real idlers, the others were convicted of trifles and mistakes. Many had no contact with anyone: the French cell regime was stricter than the Belgian one, the guards were French without knowledge of Dutch and the censors who had to read their letters knew no Dutch. Later the situation in Fresnes improved.

Van de Perre was appointed inspector of prisons by the Belgian Ministry of Justice, but when he continued to make very sharp reports, he was replaced by an inspector who did not know Dutch.

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Source

• Text: Kaj Metz
• Photos: Lionel Allorge