09.30h reception with coffee

10.00h Mass in the great chapel of Chartreuse in memory of the war refugees

11.30h Flower tribute with a minute of silence at the cemetery

12.30h Inauguration of the “Memorial Board” with the names of 599 people who died in the Chartreuse during WW1 (587 civilian casualties and 12 soldiers) + “Garden of Remembrance” + “Memorial Stone”

13.30h Lunch

14.30h Possibility to visit the Chartreuse

16.00h Presentation “Gratitude / Gratitude” (Laurence Vielle, Marc Feld, Vincent Granger)

During the First World War, thousands of Belgians who had fled the war stayed in the Carthusian Abbey of Neuville. A hospital was set up to receive the refugees. After the war, the Belgians returned home and the memory of this Belgian village disappeared.

When the Germans advance as far as the Yser in mid-October 1914, entire villages in the West Flemish hinterland are evacuated and many Belgians flee to France. A hospital is being set up in the Chartreuse to receive the refugees. Most arrive on foot or by cart. Wounded people and children are transported by train from Hazebroek (Hazebrouck) to Montreuil.  The civilian hospital is headed by Dr. Jean Jonlet and the management of the refugee community is left to the chaplain Abbé Plouvier, assisted by a hundred collaborators, doctors, nurses, workers, sisters, etc. More than 5,000 people - entire families, orphans soldiers, etc. - will eventually be killed during the rest of the year. stay in the Chartreuse during the war.  Abbé Plouvier provides education and builds one of the most important “colonies scolaires” of the First World War in the monastery.

In the meantime, a real Belgian village is being developed in the Chartreuse, with bakers, carpenters, clog makers, etc. The men work in the fields and maintain the buildings. Women do the housework. Children are born and make their first communion.  In 1915 a typhus epidemic kills many in the Chartreuse. If you add up all the deaths between March 1915 and April 1919, you get 599. They are buried on the hill outside the monastery. After the armistice in 1918, the hospital and the monastery gradually emptied. The last refugees leave the Chartreuse in the spring of 1919. The monastery once again becomes a sanatorium.  In the course of the twentieth century, the cemetery fell into disrepair and was eventually forgotten.

Text on plaque

In memory of the people who died in the Chartreuse (hospital + refugee center) in Neuville-sous-Montreuil during the Belgian presence in the First World War (from March 1915 to April 1919). Nearly all 599 who died were civilians, but there were also a dozen military personnel among them. Most of the deceased were buried in the almost forgotten Belgian cemetery in the 'meadow' within walking distance northwest of the Carthusian monastery.