Château du Petit-Spay

After having been a farm for a long time, the Château du Petit-Spay had been home to a community of Benedictine nuns since 1932. During the Second World War, it was used as a home for children of prisoners of war held in Germany. Located between Stavelot and Trois-Ponts, the Château du Petit-Spay was stormed by SS troops under Joachim Peiper on 18 December 1944, the day after the massacre they had perpetrated in Malmedy. The soldiers were exhausted and hungry.

Their aggressiveness claimed a victim in the person of the chaplain, Father Prégardian, whom the German army accused of collusion with the American troops. Taken away, he was shot. His body was not found until three months later, not far from the Coo waterfall. Unaware that children were still inside the castle walls, the Allied artillery targeted the castle. The children and their teachers had no other option than to hide in the cellars. They spent twelve days down there starving in the darkness and cold, and also witnessing the horrors of war as wounded German soldiers were taken there and treated in difficult conditions.

The conditions were appalling. Some soldiers were particularly cruel, going so far as to pour in a lot of salt to make the little soup that the instructors had managed to prepare unfit for consumption. The group managed to hold on, though.

Peiper stayed on site for a few days before he and his troops were replaced by Volksgrenadiers, who were reputedly less aggressive. They pittied the children, supplying them with food and set about getting them to leave the area. After a first evacuation attempt which was aborted – the truck carrying the children had been shot at – they finally managed to reach the Farnières castle. There they were taken care of by the Farnières fathers who were already providing accommodation for some 850 other people.

Deserted by its last inhabitants, the Château du Petit-Spay is in a state of ruin today.