During the audience granted to His Eminence Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Pope Leo XIV authorized the same Dicastery to promulgate the Decree concerning the martyrdom of the Servants of God Raimond Cayré, diocesan priest, Gerard Martin Cendrier, professed religious of the Order of Friars Minor, Roger Vallée, seminarian, Jean Mestre, and 46 companions, killed between 1944 and 1945 in hatred of the faith, in various places, in the context of the same persecution.
The story of this group of martyrs took place in the historical context of the Second World War. From June 1940 onwards, the north of France was occupied by the Nazis, while in the southern part of the country a collaborationist government was established with headquarters in Vichy.
On February 16, 1943, the "Service du Travail Obligatoire" (STO) was introduced by the Vichy regime to send a large number of French citizens to work in Germany and replace the Germans engaged at the front. Many priests, religious and lay people belonging to Catholic associations followed the French workers sent to German territory incognito. In particular, a group of twelve Friars Minor can be recognized amongst them, later nicknamed by Eloi Leclerc, the "twelve larks". They lived in a forced labor barrack, as if they were in a convent, at Camp Roland, between the current Geldernstrasse tram station and the hospital of the Sisters of St. Vincent in Nippes, a district north of Cologne, then in Camp Grenzstrasse. The twelve Franciscans organized religious services, meetings and mutual aid for forced laborers, illegal activities in the eyes of the SS. They were arrested on the 13th July, 1944 by the Gestapo and, after interrogation in the prison of Brauweiler and a brief detention in the camp of Cologne-Deutz, transferred to the camp of Buchenwald on the 16th September, 1944.
Four of these Friars Minor have been recognized as martyrs. They are:
Venerable Br. Gérard Cendrier; was born in Paris on the 16th June, 1920, he entered the novitiate in 1939. He devoted himself particularly to visiting French citizens interned in Cologne's hospitals, often unknown people with no identity. He identified them, supported them with small gifts of cigarettes and sweets. He spent many hours of the night at Cologne station. Arrested on the 13th July 1944. He died on the 25th January, 1945, because he was refused treatment by the Langenstein infirmary, where he had sought help.
Venerable Br. Paul Le Ber; he was born in Landivisiau on the 1st April 1920. One of the very few things left of him to come out of the concentration camp was a note addressed to a prisoner of war who had tried to give him food, when everyone was starving: "... Union, great union of prayers and suffering". He died in the Buchenwald concentration camp on the 13th April, 1945, killed by a gunshot.
Venerable Br. Joseph Paraire; he was born in Vincennes on the 2nd December, 1919. He was known as the "good Luigi", he knew how to create a friendly atmosphere amongst the prisoners. He died on the 26th April 1945 in a carriage on the "death train" near Pocking (Bavaria). His remains were transferred to Vincennes for burial.
Venerable Br. André Boucher; was born in Cheniménil on the 3rd August, 1920. He tried to adapt his life as a religious to that of a forced laborer. He managed to keep his missal secretly, which many asked to read, as the only means of comfort. He died of pneumonia on the 15th March, 1945 in the Buchenwald concentration camp.
The cause of these fifty French martyrs of Nazism was promoted by the French Episcopate.
