Jean Maurice was born on July 23, 1924, in Folembray, France, in the Aisne department. Later, he worked as a quarry laborer and lived in the municipality of Luché-Pringé in the Sarthe department of the Pays de la Loire region. There, he joined the French Resistance against the German occupation as a liaison officer in the “Alphonse Buckmaster” network. He subsequently served as a courier in the “Hercule Sacristain Buckmaster” Resistance network.
Jean Maurice was arrested by the Gestapo on November 23, 1943, after being denounced. He was subsequently imprisoned first at the Pré-Pigeon prison in Angers and then at the Royallieu transit camp in Compiègne. On January 27, 1944, Jean Maurice was deported to Buchenwald, where he arrived two days later. After initially being assigned to various internal work details, Jean Maurice was transferred to the Mittelbau concentration camp complex on November 6, 1944.
Jean Maurice remained in the main camp until Mittelbau-Dora was cleared in early April 1945. On April 5, he was deported in an evacuation transport to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, which he reached on April 14, 1945. When the Ravensbrück concentration camp was also evacuated on April 24, the SS forced him onto a death march toward the Baltic Sea. He managed to escape from this march, after which he was liberated by the arriving Soviet Army on May 5, 1945.
It was not until 2020 that he decided to share his life story in order to preserve it and keep the memory of what had happened alive. Most recently, in early March 2026, Jean Maurice—as the oldest resident of the town of Rosoy—spoke about his memories before an audience spanning multiple generations.
On September 5, 2026, Jean Maurice passed away at the age of 102. The staff of the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial will honor his memory. Our thoughts and sympathies are with his family and friends.
