Revivre! That was the title of a newspaper whose first – and presumably last – issue came out in Seesen, Lower Saxony on 5 May 1945. The editor of the “Journal of the French Liberated from the Nazi Yoke and Presently in Seesen” was François Le Lionnais.

A French writer, mathematician and publisher, Le Lionnais had been arrested in Paris in April 1944 for resisting the German occupiers and deported to Germany. After the war, he was a well-known French intellectual.

A clearance transport of 300 inmates from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp had stranded in Seesen on 10 April 1945. After the liberation, Le Lionnais and other survivors worked to help their fellow inmates and other victims of Nazi persecution. With support from American soldiers, they set up an infirmary in the town. The Frenchmen left for home two days after the newspaper was published.

(Jens-Christian Wagner)

Reference: Jens-Christian Wagner, “Das ‘Schland’-Mal von Münchehof: Ein außergewöhnliches Denkmal für NS-Opfer”, in: Zeitschrift für Museum und Bildung, 84–85 (2018), pp. 132–37.