Bois de la Rosière - Resistance 2nd world war

The Bois de la Rosière monument stands on the edge of the wood from which it takes its name, in the commune of Tournes near Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes), where thirteen Resistance fighters were executed without trial on 29 August 1944.
On 29 August 1944, a few hours before their departure, the Germans resigned themselves to releasing the patriots held in Charleville prison, Place Carnot, around fifty men and women. But at the insistence of the Gestapo and the French Militia, they decided to shoot some of the hostages beforehand.
So it was that the thirteen unfortunates, chosen at random, were taken from their cell and transported by lorry to Rosière Wood (in the commune of Tournes), where they were immediately shot.
They had been led to believe that they were going to be freed; among them were two women.
The Bois de la Rosière monument was inaugurated on 30 August 1947 in the presence of many prominent members of the Ardennes Resistance and Pierre Schneiter, deputy for the Marne and brother of André Schneiter.
The monument was erected on the site of the massacre at the initiative of the commune of Tournes, which had called for public subscriptions. It was designed by Gustave Maily, a sculptor from Reims. It consists of a marble stele erected on the site of a wooden Cross of Lorraine erected the day after the Liberation.
Above the names of the thirteen Resistance fighters executed are engraved a Cross of Lorraine and the inscription : ‘Here on 29 August 1944, on the eve of the Liberation, thirteen patriots were shot by the Germans’.