​​Remembrance Trail of the Escapees, Troisvierges​

​​The Gestapo repeatedly tried to infiltrate these networks with traitors, sometimes successfully, in order to break up their branches across borders deep into the hinterland. Every unknown fugitive was therefore a potential risk of being a Gestapo informer or, if arrested under torture, of revealing names and locations of the networks. 

​At the beginning of the war, patrolling and preventing smuggling at the Reich borders were among the main tasks of the German ‘Zollgrenzschutz’  (ZGS), which from 1942 to 1943  onwards became increasingly involved in military and police-like conflicts with well-organised, partly armed smuggling and fugitive movements in the occupied territories. In the last years of the war, ZGS executives were therefore continuously replaced by police and SS forces. 

​The nocturnal cross-border escape helpers were punished with extreme severity by death sentences, penal servitude, resettlement of the helpers' families and incarceration in concentration camps (KZ). Shootings with deaths on both sides were part of the daily routine. 

​Imagine the courage, maturity, and strength of character of those young patriots who risked their lives and those of their relatives in night operations to save fugitives who were often anonymous and wanted to remain so. 

​The fear of being betrayed was a constant companion, always urging the helpers to be very careful! 

​The pent-up rage against the terror of the Nazi occupation policy and the urge to no longer tolerate the crimes of the regime, as well as the unprecedented solidarity to save people in greatest need, inspired many helpers not to give up despite the danger to their lives. May their courage and perseverance serve as an example to us of how to take on the challenges today. 

​In order to save these heroic actions from oblivion, a memorial path has been laid out, leading in broad lines along the route used at that time by the escape helpers and their many brave refugees. 

​The memorial trail follows the much-travelled escape route which began in the small village of Sassel, bypassed Troisvierges, crossed the railway and then disappeared into the vast Biwisch forest to cross the border at the little stream  ’Kléngelbaach’  and ended on Belgian territory at a place then called "Maison Roche". 

​A few other clandestine border crossings on the northern tip of Luxembourg were also used at the time.