#Story
Assassination of resistance fighters at Lambin Park.
On December 19 and 20, 1944, during the Ardennes Offensive, the German army regained control of the town of Houffalize. The massive arrests by the Sonderkommandos led to the assassination of seven resistance fighters from the Belgian National Movement (MNB) at the place known as 'Parc Lambin'.
The Sonderkommandos were units detached from the security police and a Nazi security service operating in the wake of the combat troops. For them, the resistance was associated with terrorism, and their searches in the area were ruthless.
At the Houffalize gendarmerie, the Gestapo had obtained a list of MNB agents. On December 22nd, residents of Nadrin; Eudore Weinquin, Émile Remy, Léon Dethor, and Jean Voets were arrested (the latter was released). In Wibrin, Sylvain Martin was also arrested. They were taken to the Vieille Auberge in Houffalize where they spent the night on the floor. The next day, December 23rd, they were joined by Jean Nadin and Antoine Bollet at the town hall. The Gestapo interrogated them, and some received numerous blows. Taken back to the Vieille Auberge, they were asked to empty their pockets. Stripped of everything they possessed - watches, money, tobacco, papers - the Sonderkommandos took them in a truck. On the road to Liège, as they believed their lives were spared, the truck turned left into the woods. Eudore Weinquin, a survivor, testified: "At that moment, we felt it was over, that we were going to be shot."
Forced into the undergrowth, with a revolver at their necks and no permission to say anything, Émile Remy, Jean Nadin, Sylvain Martin, and Antoine Bollet were assassinated. When one of the executioners approached his weapon to Eudore Weinquin, the shot did not fire. He realized that the revolver had jammed and fled through the woods he knew well. He ran, dodging bullets, before outdistancing the SS non-commissioned officers.
Eudore Weinquin finally found refuge with a resident of the village of Engreux, miraculously. He was hit by a shot to the jaw, bloodied, and had frozen feet.
Léon Dethor was shot after Eudore Weinquin's escape. The resistance fighters arrested the next day, Armand Bastin and Alfred Huberty, were coldly assassinated in similar circumstances.
Today, thanks to valuable testimonies, Parc Lambin presents, in a bare environment conducive to the duty of remembrance, four educational panels and a memorial perpetuating the memory of the victims of SS barbarism.