Cinqfontaines Monastery and Memorial

In 1904 to1907 the Congregation of the Sacred Heart had a monastery built in Cinqfontaines/Fünfbrunnen by the German architect Klomp from Dortmund. Between 1909and 1910 a church was added to the monastery.

In March 1941 the Nazis confiscated all the monasteries in Luxembourg. The administration of the rural part was taken over by a Nazi from Diekirch. In August the first Jews were sent to the monastery called ‘home for elderly people’.

More and more Jews from all over the country were concentrated in the monastery that proved rapidly too small. The plan to erect wooden barracks could not be implemented. So the living conditions for the mostly old and ill inmates became very difficult, especially as food for them was reduced by the Nazis.

From 1941 to 1943 Jews were then deported to the ghettos and extermination camps in Eastern Europe. The monastery was situated near a railway line, a situation that allowed the deportation of the Jews in secrecy. The ’Aeltestenrat’ responsible for the implementation of the orders issued by the Gestapo was established in Cinqfontaines. On several occasions the head of the Gestapo went up to Cinqfontaines for inspections followed by restrictions imposed on the inmates.

300 to 400 Jews passed through Cinqfontaines. Some 16 Jews died in Cinqfontaines.

In 1969 a memorial was erected near the monastery to commemorate the victims of the Shoah who had been deported from Cinqfontaines. The Memorial was created by the Luxembourgish sculptor Lucien Wercollier. The inscription, a Jewish prayer, in Hebrew says:

'May your soul be woven into the beam of the living’

Every year on the first Sunday in July a commemoration is held at this memorial. In 2020 the monastery was bought by the Luxembourg government in order to serve as a pedagogical site on the Shoah. The Lëtzeburger Zentrum fir politesch BIldung (Lëtzeburg Centre for Political Education) is responsible for it and it opened at the end of 2023.