It goes without saying that the stakes over public memory in Western Europe are nowhere near as high as they were when the private citizens of Memorial were challenging the Soviet Union by burying the dead lying in the forests around Stalingrad. But that does not mean that everyone in Western Europe is fully satisfied with the way the Second World War is remembered. Monuments are being installed and conferences convened all the time. As in the Soviet Union, much of it is being done by private citizens.

For example, there is an association in France called Le Souvenir Français with the goal of remembering soldiers and resisters who died for France, mostly by making sure that their names are listed on monuments and their graves and monuments are tended. It’s notable that even in France, where every village has a First World War monument at its heart, private citizens feel the need to guard and protect the memory of “morts pour la France”* including poilus of 1914-1918.

Like Memorial in the USSR, Le Souvenir Français is also on a mission to name those who have been forgotten. I can’t tell you exactly how they discover such names, but it must involve some detailed archival research.

Some gentlemen from a local chapter of Le Souvenir Français contacted me in November 2022 to say that they had discovered that a member of Dutch-Paris had died in the concentration camps but was not listed on any monument in Paris or in his home town. They were looking for documentation to fill out the necessary paperwork to add him to a monument. I was pleased to be able to suggest a couple of archives that might help with their bureaucratic endeavors.

As a result of their diligence, the name of Raymond Mériot was added to the Monument aux Morts in his hometown of Lathus (Vienne) during a ceremony on 8 May 2023. A nephew and the press attended. The plaque identifies him as a member of Dutch-Paris.

Indeed, Mériot may well have belonged to other networks in addition to Dutch-Paris. He ran a hotel in Paris and was willing to falsify his guest register and look the other way to shelter resisters and possibly even downed Allied airmen. Of course he was paid, but he charged the normal rates rather than the exorbitant fees that some hoteliers charged on account of the extra risk. The fact that he was unable to give his story himself after the war demonstrates that the risk was indeed very real.

Once again, private citizens have corrected the record of the public memory. Bravo!

*literally mort pour la France means dead or died for France. The appellation is, as the French say, controlled and the designation is not granted without sufficient evidence. The heirs of a Mort pour la France are entitled to certain benefits.