On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the landing of French and allied armies on the Côtes de Provence, and in memory of the resistance martyrs executed on August 15, 1944, in L’Ariane, an official ceremony is organized at 9:30 AM at the Carré des fusillés de l’Ariane, in the presence of the authorities.
The landing in Provence was a military operation carried out during World War II starting on August 15, 1944, by Allied troops and French armies in the southeast of France*. The objective of this operation was to create a new front in France; this plan also included the destruction of the 19th German army present in the southeast of France at that time.
The news of the landing spreads in Nice during the day. In retaliation, on the same day, the Nice Gestapo chooses 21 resistance fighters from the detainees of the German quarters of the New Prisons. They add to this group two members of the Action Groups of the French Popular Party. Taken to an isolated wasteland in L’Ariane, they are executed one after the other.
Today, a commemorative space inaugurated on August 15, 1945, named the Carré des fusillés, recalls these executions.
