We were saddened to learn that the honorary president of the regional association of deportees from Cantal (Mémoire(s) & déportation du Cantal) has passed away.

As a child, together with his younger brother Jean Cassagne who died last year, he had to witness the deportation of his father Pierre (1902-1945). For decades, both brothers kept alive the memory of more than a hundred people from the the villages of Murat and Saint-Flour in the Cantal département who were arrested as an act of retaliation and then deported département to the Neuengamme concentration camp and especially the Bremen-Farge subcamp.

Roger Cassagne campaigned for the creation of the Murat deportees' memorial and forged close links with the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial and the Bunker Valentin memorial site. One consequence of his commitment was the erection of the stele "Murat dans la tourmente" in memory of the deportees from Murat in the memorial grove of the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial in 2012. This resulted in many contacts between the memorial in Hamburg and the association in Murat with youth and exhibition projects about the deportations from Murat.

Roger Cassagne died on 28 February 2022 at the age of 82. We think back with gratitude to the encounters and conversations we had with him and our thoughts are with his family.

Mémoire(s) & déportation du Cantal