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Haubourdin French national war cemetery

La nécropole nationale d’Haubourdin. © ECPAD

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The national war cemetery of Haubourdin mainly contains the remains of soldiers who died for France during the fighting in the North and the Battle of Lille in May-June 1940. Created after these battles, next to the communal cemetery, this war cemetery was established in 1941 then extended between 1952 and 1954 to hold the bodies of soldiers and resistant fighters exhumed from other cemeteries in the region. More than 2,000 bodies are buried here including 1,816 French soldiers in individual graves.

Among these soldiers are buried the remains of two generals. Those of General Dame, commander of the 2nd North African Infantry Division (DINA) who died for France on 18th July 1940 during his captivity in the fortress of Königstein and those of General Mesny, commander of the 5th DINA. This general officer was executed on 19th January 1945 in retaliation for the death of the German General von Brodowsky on 28th October 1944.

178 graves also preserve the memory of Soviet prisoners of war or civilians arrested on the Eastern Front and deported to France to work in the mines or in the construction of the Atlantic Wall. Some antifascist Russian immigrants are also buried there.

The war cemetery also contains 21 graves of Russian soldiers who died during the First World War.

In 1915, the German army established, to the left of the communal cemetery, a military cemetery for burying the soldiers who died in combat or in the field hospitals. It contains 1,627 bodies, including 631 in a mass grave.

La nécropole nationale d’Haubourdin. © ECPAD

La reddition des troupes françaises à Lille, juin 1940. Les troupes allemandes rendent les honneurs militaires aux derniers défenseurs de Lille, le 1er juin 1940. © La Coupole