A few metres away a concrete pillar on a conical base bore two columns of names separated by a Lorraine cross. Members of the Resistance, they had been gathering up arms and ammunition as the Allied forces completed their long trek from the Normandy beaches to the outskirts of Paris when they were betrayed by double agents and captured by the Wehrmacht. In the early morning of the 16th of August 1944 they were packed into trucks and driven to the bois de Boulogne. Their journey ended at a deserted grove of oaks near the Grande Cascade, a waterfall constructed under Napoleon III to amuse Sunday strollers. The Germans opened fire with machine guns as the last of the prisoners struggled out of the crowded trucks. None of them lived to see Paris liberated nine days later.
