On Sunday 30 August 2015, the Comité Directeur pour le Souvenir de l'Enrôlement Forcé (CDSEF) and the Comité National de la Fédération des Enrôlés des Force Victimes du Nazisme (FEDEF) will commemorate the young Luxembourgers who were forcibly recruited into Nazism in 1942.
The National Memorial Day will be held on the same day as young members of the Luxembourgish population born between 1920 and 1924 were conscripted to the Wehrmacht 73 years ago. The conscription followed the Nazi invasion of Luxembourg in May of 1940, after which a programme of 'Germanisation' of the Grand Duchy began, involving the censorship of non-Germanic languages and traditions and forced recruitment to German forces.
The conscription system culminated in a Luxembourgish general strike in 1942, whereby the country's citizens demonstrated passive resistance to the procedure, which led to German forces sentencing 21 strikers to death.
The National Memorial day will begin with a commemorative mass from Canon André Heiderscheid and father Larence Fackelstein in the Église Sacré-Coeur in the Gare district of Luxembourg City. This will be followed by a memorial ceremony, during which the President of the Chamber of Deputies, the Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, City Mayor Lydie Polfer and the CDSEF and FEDEF committees will lay flowers at the 'Kanounenhiwwel' monument of National Solidarity.
To close, 'La Sonnerie aux Morts' and the Luxembourg national anthem will be played.
Photo by JWH / Wikimedia
