Ligne de démarcation - Plaque souvenir Esther Grunberger

Since 2022, the Combattants Volontaires de la Résistance (CVR) of the Cluny-Mâcon-Chalon section have been working on a project to mark the old demarcation line, the border imposed by the enemy from 1940 to 1943.
In Cersot, on 20 August 1942, at around 6pm, a group of 14 illegals was spotted by the German sentry on this road, trying to reach the southern zone clandestinely, with the help of a smuggler.
At the entrance to the Chemin des Guénins, the customs officers fired on the group, wounding two-year-old Esther Grunberger, a Jew, in her parents' arms. She was then transferred to Chalon hospital, where she died of her injuries.
The rest of the group (Belgian Jews trying to reach the southern zone to escape persecution and arrest) and their parents (Mojzesz Grunberger and Chaya Vachsstock) were arrested, transferred to Drancy on 29 August and then deported on 31 August 1942 to Birkenau in Poland, from where they never returned.
Today, the parents' identities appear on the wall of names of deported Jews at the Shoah Memorial in Paris. Traces of little Esther were found by the CVR association: she now lies in one of the mass graves in the Boucicaut cemetery in Chalon-sur-Saône.
A plaque, unveiled on 25 June 2022, commemorates the memory of little Esther in Cersot, at the initiative of the CVRs and the municipality.