Memory of the heroine: stumbling block for a forced conscript from Alsace

Memory of the heroine: stumbling block for a forced conscript from Alsace

In a moving ceremony on May 22, 2025 in the Alsatian village of Brumath, a special honor was given: For the first time, an Alsatian woman who was forcibly recruited by the Wehrmacht was honored with a stumbling block. Loud star Historian Christophe Woehrlé described this stumbling block as the first dedicated to a “Malgré-nous”. The term “malgré-nous” means “against our will” and describes the forced recruitment of around 130,000 people from the annexed border area during the Second World War.

Yvette Schacké, who was born in Strasbourg in 1925 and was forcibly recruited in April 1944, belongs to this group. About 40,000 of those recruited did not return after the war. Schacké was first sent to Germany and later near Danzig. Tragically, in January 1945 she was on the ship Wilhelm Gustloff, which was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine and sank with around 10,000 people on board. Schacké is probably one of the victims of this accident.

The history of the “Malgré-nous”

Forced recruitment in Alsace-Lorraine was a taboo in France for a long time. With the beginning of the occupation and annexation in June 1940, the people of Alsace and Lorraine were viewed by the Germans as ethnic Germans and were drafted into the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS. Loud Wikipedia These recruitments led to a stigma in which the survivors were often viewed as collaborators and traitors to France. Their self-naming as “Malgré-nous” reflects their resistance to military service and their pro-French sentiments.

Over the course of the war, over 90% of those recruited were deployed to the Eastern Front and the losses were devastating. Around 32,000 people are estimated to have died in the fighting, while 10,500 are missing. Many tried to escape via the Vosges to France or Switzerland, although some did not survive their service in the Wehrmacht.

The rehabilitation of the Malgré-nous

It was only long after the war that efforts at rehabilitation began. In 2010, then-President Nicolas Sarkozy rehabilitated the “Malgré-nous” as victims of war crimes. This was an important step in changing the often ambivalent mood in Alsace, where survivors were often subject to recriminations.

The ceremony in Brumath is not only a recognition of Yvette Schacké, but also a symbolic symbol for everyone who suffered from the consequences of forced recruitment. Stolpersteine, a project by the artist Gunter Demnig, have been commemorating the fate of persecuted, expelled and murdered people during the Nazi era in over 30 European countries since the 1990s. With over 100,000 stones laid, they form a haunting memorial against forgetting.