30th June 1944. Eight hundred German troops held Vauxbons, the surrounding villages and the wood where nineteen men from the Voisines Maquis had set up camp. Shouting in the streets of the village, they threatened the population with reprisals if they did not flush out the Maquis... After several hours of fighting, the Maquis was wiped out.
Once the fighting was over, Maxime Nancey, the deputy mayor, and the men of the village of Vauxbons were summoned by the soldiers to retrieve the bodies of the unfortunate Resistance fighters. Coming out into the open in a meadow, he was wounded by gunfire before being shot at point-blank range.
Vauxbons has not forgotten the deaths of the young Resistance fighters and that of Maxime Nancey.
So that they remain in the collective memory today, a stele pays tribute to him, very close to the place where he fell. On the outskirts of the village, Chemin le Champ Fleury.
Stèle de Maxime Nancey à Vauxbons
