Relic found at site of Le Paradis massacre of 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment

The 2nd Battalion formed part of the allied rearguard protecting the withdrawal to Dunkirk. After fierce resistance to the advancing German Blitzkrieg and the expenditure of all their ammunition, ninety-nine Norfolks surrendered to a Company of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment of the SS Totenkopf Division. The captured British were disarmed, searched and marched to Louis Creton's farm at Le Paradis. Here they were machine-gunned against the barn wall. The only two survivors escaped later that night.

The victims were initally buried by the barn where local people tended the mass grave, marking it with a cross and some British steel helmets. Two years later, in May 1942, the bodies were exhumed and transferred to the communal cemetery in Le Paradis. Part of this is now the Commonwealth War Cemetery of Lestrem. There is a memorial stone at the Creton's farm. In 1948 the two survivors of the massacre testified at the trial of the German captain who gave the order to fire. SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Fritz Knoechlein was found guilty and hanged.