Credit: POST Luxembourg / Anthony Dehez

To commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the Luxembourg postal workers' strike against Nazi occupation, the Amicale de POST Luxembourg held a commemorative ceremony on Tuesday 3 September 2024.

The ceremony took place in front of the commemorative plaque "To our Heroes and Martyrs" (A nos Héros et Martyrs), installed in the entrance hall of POST Technologies at Cloche d'Or. Among those present were members of the victims' families, as well as Luxembourg's Minister of the Economy, Lex Delles, and members of the Board of Directors, management and the Amicale de POST Luxembourg.

The welcoming words of the Amicale de POST Luxembourg President, Mike Orazi, were followed by speeches by Cliff Konsbruck, Deputy Director General of POST Luxembourg, Maurice Bauer, First Alderman of the City of Luxembourg (Ville de Luxembourg), and Minister Lex Delles. The ceremony closed with the national anthem "Ons Heemecht", performed by Georges Schmit.

Background

On Sunday 30 August 1942, Gauleiter Gustav Simon made public the decree imposing compulsory military service in the Wehrmacht on all male Luxembourgers born between 1920 and 1924. The trade unions and resistance movements organised a strike in Wiltz against the forced enlistment of some 15,000 Luxembourgers by the Nazi occupiers; the strike spread to the capital and the south of the country.

Postal workers Nicky Konz and Jean Schroeder, both aged 28, were the first to be arrested in the City of Luxembourg. Following this revolt, death sentences were handed down by the special courts, followed by immediate executions. In addition to Nicky Konz and Jean Schroeder, who were executed on 3 and 4 September 1942 in the Hinzert concentration camp, nine members of the PTT (today's POST) staff who had gone on strike (with many others) at the central post office in Luxembourg City were brought before the Standgericht and, together with 37 other Luxembourgers, received various sentences. A total of 22 postal workers were deported to concentration camps, six of whom were killed. Ten other postal workers were imprisoned, two of whom lost their lives.