1920), one of the first to join de Gaulle and the Free French Forces. The last surviving Compagnon is Hubert Germain (b. The second-to-last surviving member, Daniel Cordier (1920−2020), died on 20 November 2020. Today, only one Compagnon is still alive. Musée de l’Ordre de la Libération/AFP/Getty Images. Regrettably, only six women received the Order. The youngest recipient was fourteen (Mathurin Henrio was executed after refusing to answer questions about the Maquis). The honor was bestowed upon 1,038 individuals, eighteen military units, and five cities (including Paris).
The objective was to award those who “distinguished themselves in the task of liberating France and her Empire.” It was established on 16 November 1940 and the last award was given on 23 January 1946 (the Order was re-opened in 19 for Winston Churchill and King George VI, respectively). The medal awarded to a recipient is the Croix de la Libération.
Charles de Gaulle to an individual, military unit, and city. Today, we are going to examine a different group of concentration camp doctors: the doctors who were prisoners.ĭid you know that there is only one remaining Compagnons de la Libération (Companion of the Liberation)? What is a Compagnons de la Libération you say? This is the single rank title of the Ordre de la Libération, or “Order of Liberation” given by Gen.
Karl Brandt, defendant in the Nuremberg trial known as the “Doctors’ Trial.” Brandt was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo #41017. Herta Oberheuser, stands to receive her sentence at the Doctors’ Trial. Gebhardt was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed. SS-Gruppenführer Karl Gebhardt, doctor at KZ Ravensbrück and KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau. They included Karl Brandt (1904−1948 executed), Herta Oberhauser (1911−1978 20 years-released in 1952), Josef Mengele (1911−1979, drowned), Karl Gebhardt (1897−1948 executed), and Viktor Brack (1904−1948 executed), to name just a few. These men and women are the Schutzstaffel, or SS doctors who performed medical experiments on camp inmates, participated in the sorting process, and committed crimes against humanity. One group of Nazis that has been well documented are the concentration camp doctors. Most importantly, it will ensure we don’t forget and hopefully, stay vigilant for modern-day political abuses of power and similar policies that slowly erode democracy and individual freedoms (e.g., anti-Semitism, racism, calls for denouncements, elimination of the free press, arrests and imprisonment for anti-government positions, etc.).
The more we know about how the Nazis rose to power, the policies they enacted to stay in power, and above all, the crimes they committed might help us to understand how this could happen again. During the historical examination of the Holocaust, the concentration camps, and the Nazi war crimes, much of the focus seems to be on the Nazis rather than their victims either individually or collectively (with the exception of six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust).