Georges Belin 1902 - 1945

Born 3.10.1902 in Pexonne
Died 16.4.1945 in Mauthausen

Biography

Georges Belin was born on 3 October 1902 in Pexonne, he married Jeanne Cuny in 1929 and had two children with her: Geneviève, born on 4 January 1932, and Pierre, born on 22 April 1937.

After their marriage they lived in Celles sur Plaine, Jeanne’s birthplace. Georges decided to return with his family to Pexonne in 1943 in order to restore his parents’ house, which had been damaged after the ‘strange war’. He was then working as a technician in the ceramics factory at Pexonne. The family’s last shared celebration took place in June 1944 to mark Geneviève’s first communion. The family also privately celebrated the Allied landing in Normandy. Georges joined the Résistance.

Belin performed a liaison function and passed messages between the pharmacist in Celles sur Plaine, who was entrusted with ensuring that the partisans were kept supplied, and the teacher in Ancerviller. He asked of his family only that they should warn him if the Germans came. He had established a hide-out for himself in the family crypt of the childless Perrin family, at the bottom of the garden.

Georges Belin was among the 109 men arrested in the raid of 27 August 1944 in Pexonne (54), of whom 79 were deported. After spending three days in the Haxo barracks in Baccarat, he was taken to the concentration camps Natzweiler-Struthof (prisoner number 26819) and Dachau (prisoner number 100376), then, on 16 September 1944, to the Mauthausen camp and finally, on 29 September 1944, to Gusen/‘Bergkristall’ (prisoner number 97636). He spent 16 days in the sick bay, from 16 November to 2 December 1944, and died on 16 April 1945 in the infirmary camp. He had been transferred there on 6 March 1945, suffering from dysentery. The young Pierre Lallemand was the last person from Pexonne to see him again.

In 1947 Jeanne received a small wooden box from the Ministry of War Veterans with the following contents: his wedding ring, his wallet including his identity card, his pass as a technician in the ceramics factory, a ration card for tobacco and a small ‘Suze’ promotional booklet with entries about the dimensions of the house to be renovated and quotations for raw materials.

 

Guillaume Maisse

 

Translation into English: Joanna White

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