Blessed Cayré, Cendrier, Vallée, Mestre and 46 Companions

This is the beatification of fifty victims of the religious persecution carried out by the Nazi police against the organised Catholic apostolate among the workers requisitioned by the Vichy government for compulsory labour service in Germany. Between 1939 and 1945 the Third Reich forced some thirteen to fourteen million people to work: foreign civilian workers who had come to Germany voluntarily or under compulsion, prisoners of war, and prisoners in concentration camps, re-education camps and ghettos. The requisition of French workers raised the question of their spiritual care in Germany. From their arrival, a number of young men of the Young Christian Workers took initiatives among their fellows, often helped by the German clergy or by religious congregations, and were joined by prisoners of war who shared their life.

This spontaneous apostolate took shape with the arrival of priests in 1943, and drew the attention of the Nazi police, actively assisted by French services. Investigations from September to November 1943 identified the groups, their leaders and their activities, and an order from Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the Reich Security Main Office, targeted the whole French Catholic apostolate. Arrests followed across Germany between January 1944 and January 1945. The fifty martyrs were of very different ages, origins, conditions and vocations, among them ten priests.