According to stories circulating in the Cevennes village of the dynasty: in the 40s, for several days, passers-by heard the bruised sobs of an infant who would have been sequestered and starved until death ensued in an attic of the family home of the aalz. The stories do not tell the context or the reasons for such a barbaric act.
Quite quickly, on the web, appears information about the turbulent period of the 50s and the barbaric repression exercised by the French colonial power.
Some characters emerge as cards:
- Pierre Messmer (20/03/1916 – 29/08/2007 : 91 years) :
| de 1956 à 1958 : haut-commissaire de la République au Cameroun où il dirige une offensivefrom 1956 to 1958: High Commissioner of the Republic in Cameroon where he led an offensive against the separatists of the Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC) by conducting "a «counter-insurrectional maneuver»; |
In Cameroon, to create his 'pacification zone', Pierre Messmer was, naturally (!), to eliminate the disruptive elements that he described as 'communist' according to the colonial era terms.
'Eliminate' means 'kill'. And it was better to give a somewhat legal dimension to these killings. A few stamps and a little gibberish could dress that up well.
Small hands to do this work should be easy to find. Among these little hands, Karl Aalz represented a good find. Discreet Cevennes magistrate who hugs the walls despite his experience in a similar context in Madagascar, (bloody repression... tens of thousands of deaths)... what seemed to be in line with Messmer's plans:
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Pierre Messmer : « From now on, my strategy will be simple: having managed to contain the revolt of the UPC in its cradle of the Bassa country, I will stifle it there. And I will succeed, winning one of the two French successes of the post-war period against overseas insurgencies (the other being Madagascar).» |
Heads cut off and exposed on the storefronts of the sub-prefectures!
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One of the methods of terror used by French colonialism in Cameroon, then by the government of our country from 1960, was the display of severed heads in public squares: markets, bus stations, storefronts of sub-prefectures, etc. |
Long after, Meraalz, Karl's wife, was still proud to tell that she had the joy of dancing with Messmer !... she didn’t say a word about Karl's role in the severed heads exposed to the markets... and seemed not to suspect what history reserved for these dishonorable collaborations – if not these crimes against Humanity!
In the Cevennes, Vébron, Lozère sheltered war criminals and repression! ... Camisards must be turning over in their graves!...
Le Colonel Lucien de Montagnac : «To chase away the ideas that sometimes besiege me, I cut off heads, not artichoke heads, but men's heads.» |
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Madagascar: A "civilizing" colonization at the expense of the populations ... In 1947, revolts against French authority called for the violent repression of unrest; French estimates at the time are 89,000 dead La colonisation Française de Madagascar [From 1948]... until 1958, peasants hidden in the forests came out exhausted, hungry. It is a humanitarian disaster.
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M. Benchien