Thirty-five Jewish refugees, aged man and woman from Alsace-Lorraine, were buried alive in three wells of a little town in central France last July, after a roundup by German military police and Vichy militiamen, the newspaper France au Comat charges.
All the victims had been living quietly in the town of st. Amand when, on the night of July 22-23, the Nazis and militiamen descended on the community and rounded up all the Jews, according to the newspaper’s special correspondent, who investigated the crimes.
One of the intended victims, named Kramaison, escaped from one of the trucks carrying the refugees to the prison at Beurges, and hid out in the woods. It was through his efforts to locate his wife, who had been taken off in another truck, that the atrocities came to light.
After spending the night at the Bourges prison, the victims were reloaded in the trucks which set off in the direction of Nevers. When the Germans were finally driven out of the area, the bodies of 35 men and women were found jammed in the three wells, situated on the Gucry estate in the commune of Savigny-on-Saptaine.
Since then, medical evidence has established that the victims had been hurled down the wells, and then horribly crushed to death by huge rocks thrown on top of them. The rocks filled the wells to the top. Among the 34 victims identified was a Col. Benhcim, aged 76, a commander of the Legion of Honor; Elie Raymond Grumbach, 42, a native of Switzerland; I. Dreyfus, 85; A. Bruschwig, 73; Edouard Weil, 76; Madame Jeanne Levi, 68; Marthe Kramison, the wife of the man who escaped; and a girl of 18, Colette Strauss.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
