The French word 'rafle' means 'police roundup' in English. Because of its associations with the mass arrests of the Second World War, most famously the Rafle du Vel d'Hiv, it is quite a toxic term.
On 27 July 1944, at dawn, a German task force from Tours, accompanied by Gestapo agents and French members of the collaborationist parties (fascists, anti-semites or anti-Bolsheviks mostly), stormed the sub-prefectural town of Loches.
Memorial plaque to the clerk of the court, one of the victims of the roundup.
They arrested everyone they encountered in the street, including the sub-prefect, and went to their homes to look for anyone suspected of being more or less active in helping the Resistance.
Among them were civilians such as Marguerite Mallet, wife of Raymond Mallet, one of the leaders of the Secret Army of Loches, Lucienne and René Tocheport, factory owners whose trucks were used by the maquisards, Odette Houlbreque, a nurse who was very close to the maquis leader Lecoze, and Ernestine Denise Charlot, a milliner in rue Quintefol whose nephew had just joined the maquis of Épernon.
Memorial plaque to police officers who died in concentration camps after the roundup.
They also arrested all the members of the police and thirty-six gendarmes present in Loches, who they reprimanded for their lack of diligence in the search for young men who had refused to join the STO (the compulsory labour service which deported those forced to join to Germany to work in the mines and factories). Since 12 June 1944, all the gendarmes of the brigades of the Loches section had, by order of their senior officers, been assembled at the chief town. So that is, in addition to the gendarmes of the brigade of Loches, those of the brigades of Preuilly-sur-Claise, Montrésor, Saint-Flovier, Boussay, Villeloin-Coulangé and Abilly were all gathered in Loches.
All those arrested, maybe as many as three hundred people, were taken to the courtyard of the girls' school for interrogation.
This war memorial to police officers who lost their lives in the Second World War is in Place des Anciens d'AFN, next to the Agnes Sorel cultural centre in Loches, and the Metropolitan Police Station.
At the end of the day, 58 men and six women (including Mme Mallet) were sent to the Henri Martin prison in Tours before being deported to Germany.
The gendarmes were first sent to the Neuengamme camp where they arrived on 1 September 1944. Some of them stayed there, the others were sent to the Wilhelmshaven Command where 29 of them died.
Denis Louis BONNAUDET: Born in 1906 in Chatonnay (Vendée), he was the Adjutant at the police station in Preuilly. Having not taken any action against the Resistance in the area he was arrested and taken to prison in Tours. He joined a convoy of prisoners from Rennes and was taken to Belfort then Neuengamme and later Wilhelmshaven. He died in April 1945 at Luneburg.
Ernestine Denise CHARLOT: Born in 1886 at Loches, she was a milliner. She was arrested for having sheltered her nephew, who was in the Resistance, following a denunciation by a woman from Loches. Imprisoned in Tours, she joined the Rennes convoy heading for Belfort. She was deported in September 1944 to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where she was gassed in April 1945.
Noel HAPPE: Born on Christmas Day in 1918 at Hellendoom in the Netherlands, he was a policeman in Preuilly. He was deported via the same route as the others, but only taken as far as Neuengamme. He survived the War and was liberated in the Flensburg Fjord. After the War he wrote a short account of his experience.
Odette HOULBREQUE: Born in 1911 at Fécamp (Seine-Maritime) she was a nurse and close friend of the notorious Resistance leader known as Lecoze (who claimed to be a doctor, but was really just a violent criminal and fraudster on the run). She was sent to Ravensbruck but luckily did not stay there. She was liberated in Hamburg in May 1945.
Marguerite MALLET: Born in 1914 at Lille, she was arrested and sent to Belfort like the others, but after that it is not known what happened to her, and her name is missing from the memorial in Loches. Evidence suggests that she died at Ravensbruck in February 1945. Her husband, a lawyer, was one of the local Resistance leaders and head of the political wing of the Loches based section of the Secret Army.
Lucienne TOUCHEPORT: Born Lucienne Métais in 1907 at Ferriere-sur-Beaulieu, near Loches. She was arrested for having sheltered Resistance members and sent to Ravensbruck by the same route as the others, but then on to another concentration camp and finally Oranienburg, where she was liberated in April 1945.
René TOUCHEPORT: Born in 1906 at Descartes, he was an industrialist, married to Lucienne and living in a charming hamlet just outside of Loches called Les Petites Maisons. He was arrested for sheltering Resistance members and sent to Germany, ending up at Wilhelmshaven and dying there in April 1945.
Paul WATEL: Born in 1914 at Lambersart (Nord), he was a policeman at Preuilly sur Claise. He was deported to Neuengamme, where he died in November 1944.
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