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CHAPTER 7 Dinant: St. Jacques, St. Nicolas ST. JACQUES: INTRODUCTION The authors of the crimes in the quartier St. Jacques were soldiers of the 46th Brigade of the 23rd Division, in particular the 182nd and 108th Infantry Regiments. The officers and soldiers who executed civilians in Leffe and in the districtssouthof St.Jacquesattemptedtoexplainandjustifytheiractions in the German White Book. But the principal massacre in the quartier St. Jacques, the shooting of thirty men against a wall in the rue des Tanneries , goes unmentioned by its perpetrators in that bulky volume. The identity of the killers would therefore have been difficult to determine had it not been for their lack of thoroughness. Unlike the men captured and lined up by the efficient 178th Regiment, some victims in St. Jacques survived the shooting and clearly saw the number 108 on the helmets of their would-be executioners. “I’M GOING TO HELP THOSE PEOPLE OVER THERE” Seeing all of the neighborhood in flames, members of the Disy family left their own cellar for the greater security, they thought, of the brasserie Nicaise across the street. A number of their neighbors had the same idea. The Germans came knocking only around 5:00 p.m. The civilians faced the dilemma that confronted all Dinantais who had remained concealed until late in the day: should they open the door, stay hidden, or attempt to flee? Much depended, naturally, on what those hidden had seen or heard during the day. In the brasserie cellar there was a hot debate, conducted in whispers , when the furious pounding began. Some urged that no one budge. However, the proprietor, Jules Monin, thought it would only exasperate the Germans if the door remained locked. They would break in regardless , and he still hoped to save the brasserie. Within moments he was negotiating for his life. The Germans poured in and immediately pulled out the women and children and drove them up rue St. Jacques toward the Abbey. An officer then informed the men 296 CHAPTER 7 in bad French that they were all going to be shot. Monin offered the Germans a large sum of money, but he was pushed back with others, and the men forced down a side street to the rue des Tanneries. There they were lined up against the wall of the Laurent house, their backs to the Meuse. Prosper Junius, a fifty-one-year-old professor at the Collège Communal , had taken refuge with his wife and child in the home of the lawyer M. Barré. There was easy access to the garden and the family reckoned they would be able to escape without great difficulty if the Germans set the house ablaze. The garden door opened onto rue des Tanneries, and hearing a ruckus in the street, Professor Junius ventured out to see what was going on. Horrified to observe the thirty men lined up, facing a platoon of soldiers with their guns leveled, he raced back to his wife and told her, “I’m going to help those people over there.” He spoke German fluently and no doubt felt confident he could clear up whatever misunderstanding had led the soldiers to line up the civilians and prepare to shoot them. Junius approached the officer in charge and began to explain that these men were well disposed toward the Germans, and did not even have the means of harming them if they had wished to. The officer turned away without responding. Junius persisted, pleading the case of the condemned men. Such rank insubordination on the part of a civilian – addressing an officer without receiving permission – was intolerable. The officer ordered his soldiers to seize the professor and thrust him into the row of victims. Desperately, Junius now addressed the soldiers facing him, but he was cut off by a shrill blast from the officer’s whistle and the platoon fired on the men. Everyone fell. A second fusillade hit those who’d escaped the first. Several men still remained alive, however. They listened in disbelief as the platoon broke into a victory song. The soldiers then marched off, leaving behind a few men to finish off those still alive. For whatever reasons, these men were less than thorough. When they headed off to join their comrades, three of the victims were still alive. Alexandre Disy was the luckiest: he had been only slightly grazed by the bullets. He and one of the other survivors then hid under the quai de Meuse where it...

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