Among the sound of whispering trees and the squelch of mud underfoot, a soldier stares into a camera. Maybe the photographer, most probably a German soldier, called out to him. What do we see in his eyes? A sense of defeat? Hopelessness? Defiance? If only we could ask this man what he had seen, but to us he remains a silent figure, trapped in a single, unsettling moment. The photo was taken in June 1940, the month that France fell to the invading German forces and descended into Nazi occupation. Only a month earlier, the German army had launched its Blitzkrieg (‘Lightning War’) and pushed the stunned British and French forces back to the coast. By early June most of the British force had been evacuated from Dunkirk and the French army had been left to fight on alone.
Almost nine per cent of the French Army were ‘Colonial Troops’ – drawn from the areas of Africa or South-East Asia that France had violently colonised. Some were willing to fight, but most had been forcibly conscripted into the army. The majority formed the ‘Senegalese Tirailleurs’ – men drawn from across Western, Central and Eastern Africa. About 35,000 men formed the ‘Malagasy Tirailleurs’, who were taken from Madagascar. There was also a small division of ‘Indochinese Tirailleurs’, men from present-day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
During the Fall of France, a large part of the French army was taken captive and made Prisoners of War (POWs). While over one million white French servicemen were sent to POW camps in Germany, 120,000 African and South-East Asian soldiers were segregated into work camps within Nazi-occupied France, so as not to ‘contaminate’ German land. All POWs, regardless of race, were at risk of abuse. And yet men from Africa and South-East Asia were particularly vulnerable because many of their German captors fervently adhered to racist Nazi ideology. Indeed, there are numerous accounts of African soldiers being massacred by German soldiers instead of being taken prisoner.
How can we find these men’s stories? Have their voices not been lost to time and the prison walls? The short answer is no, because remarkably some men’s voices have survived.
The poems of Léopold Sédar Senghor, written in French, record his experiences of the work camps. The ‘Songs of the Shadows’ were published in 1948 and bring to life the horrors that these POWs endured. One particularly revealing poem is entitled ‘Camp 1940’:
‘They lie there stretched out by the captive roads, along the roads of disaster… / Senegalese prisoners miserably lying on the French land.’
‘Hatred and hunger ferment there in the torpor of a deadly summer. / It is a large village surrounded by the immobile spite of barbed wire / A large village under the tyranny of four machine guns / Always ready to fire. / And the noble warriors beg for cigarette butts, / Fight with dogs over bones, and argue among themselves / Like imaginary cats and dogs.’
Senghor also wrote a seven-page report on conditions in the camp in the summer of 1942. The document was only rediscovered in 2010 by the historians Raffael Scheck and it is a visceral reflection on the brutality of his German captors:
‘The most demoralizing thing is hunger… Captain Hahn… fires at a Senegalese who “chips” potatoes, and he is killed… It is the reign of arbitrariness.’
Soon after writing this report, Senghor faked an illness and was released into Paris. Many men became terminally ill from tuberculosis and were removed from the camps. Senghor became a teacher in Paris, and after the war returned to Senegal and entered politics. His time as a POW shaped his political path as he had spoken to many Senegalese men – often peasants – while in captivity about their experiences of French colonial rule. He had also witnessed many men die in the service of their colonial master. He became the first President of the Republic of Senegal in 1960 and wrote their National Anthem.
We can also hear the stories of POWs through the work of Hélène de Gobineau, who was a volunteer in the wartime prisons and hospitals and recorded many of the men’s experiences. Her book, Noblesse d’Afrique (‘The Nobility of Africa’), was published in 1946. She wrote:
‘I knew them unhappy, harassed, cut off from everything they loved, fighting against death. … And each of these stories expresses the same common values: nobility, generosity, courage, a sense of equality and justice.’
The POWs’ voices, their thoughts, fears and hopes, shine through de Gobineau’s account. She not only preserved their experiences, but also their personalities and their humanity. The POWs that de Gobineau spoke with, believed that black soldiers were placed on the front lines deliberately, and ‘died by the thousands’ as cannon fodder. They also witnessed ‘the Germans [putting] the Whites on one side and loaded them into waiting trucks while the Blacks were lined up against a wall on the other side, and tac…tac…tac…’.
One man, Zemba, only wished to die so his ‘soul’ could ‘fly unfettered back to his mother-country’. Another, named Diallo, would not leave the side of a ‘comrade dying of [tuberculosis]’. Fatoum wanted his photo taken, ‘standing to attention when facing death on the morning of his passing’.
When the war ended, while white French POWs found they could return home and collect their pay with relative ease, African men were not always rewarded for their services. In 1944, in the Senegalese town of Thiaroye, African veterans protested after the French authorities refused to pay them for their four years of captivity and forced labour. French soldiers fired on them, and historians estimate that over 300 men were killed – although the French government still maintains that ‘only’ 70 men died. Veterans were killed by the colonial power they had sacrificed so much for.
Afterwards, Senghor wrote a poem entitled Thiaroye:
‘No, you have not died in vain. / You are the witnesses of immortal Africa / You are the witnesses of the new world to come. / Sleep now, O Dead! Let my voice rock you to sleep, / My voice of rage cradling hope.’
Through both Senghor’s poems and de Gobineau’s writing some of the voices of the 120,000 POWs can still be heard today. But is anyone listening? The sacrifices of these African POWs are rarely commemorated in France. While there are some anonymous graves, they do not reflect the lives of the 120,000 men who were imprisoned on French soil. Today, in France, there is growing support for far-right politicians who have built their platform on anti-immigration policies and the rejection of multi-culturalism. For them, French citizenship only belongs to white Christians. The nations that sacrificed their people in the name of France, are not welcome on French soil. France’s colonial past has not only been forgotten, but also silenced.
‘They put flowers on tombs and warm the Unknown Soldier. / You my dark brothers, no one appoints you.’
Senghor, To The Senegalese Riflemen Who Died For France (1938).
It is no wonder that today the Black Lives Matter protests continually call for noise, for us to ‘Say Their Names’ and ‘Break [the] Silence’. If these men are not heard, they remain unknown; they become silent figures trapped in photographs with their voices erased from history. The silence needs to be shattered, not only for their memory to survive but for their relatives to receive justice today.
The ‘Songs of the Shadows’ need to soar once more … and we all need to listen.
‘The vast song of your blood will defeat machines and canons / Your speech throbbing deceptions and lies / No hate in your soul, you are not hateful, no cunning / …soul without cunning. / O Black Martyrs, immortal race, let me say the / …words that forgive.’
Senghor, Camp 1940: Assassinations.
Further Reading
Myron Echenberg, ‘Morts Pour la France’; The African Soldier in France During the Second World War’, The Journal of African History, 26.4 (1985), 363-80.
Raffael Scheck, ‘French Colonial Soldiers in German PRISONER-OF-WAR Camps (1940–1945)’, French History, 24.3 (2010), 420-46.
Historians for History 
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