Monument to the War Dead of Givet

A few words about the rooster located behind the monument...
Made after the Great War, it is not surprising that at the time of the invasion of 1940 and the ensuing occupation, the Germans wanted to seize and remove it.

To participate in the design of some cannon, it was first the bronze statue of Mehul, also at the time on the Place Mehul, which disappeared first.

Then the rooster, but in a different way:
The mayor at the time, Roger Declef, conceived the project of hiding it.
He contacted Mario Biadatti, whom he often met at the town hall. Mario Biadatti, a member of the Resistance before his time, came to get food vouchers for French soldiers who had escaped from the German camps.
Charged with the mission of removing the rooster, Mario Biadatti dismantled the rooster, hid it in a bag and took it to Gabriel Declef's house, clerk of the court and father of the first magistrate, at n°13 rue d'Estrée (today rue Flayelle).

The rooster then disappeared into the courtyard... that was where the manure was!

In September 1944, on the morning of the Liberation, he dug it up and brought it to the town hall.
All that remained was to put it back in place on the monument.

This is how the famous rooster on the Givet war memorial was saved.