Marie Séraphine Mertz was born on June 1, 1893, in Lasauvage, the daughter of François Mertz and his wife Marie Fey. François Mertz worked in the mines. Marie Séraphine married Jean Heck, born on July 24, 1888, in Bech near Echternach. The little family lived in Differdange. Two boys were born from this marriage, René and Marcel Heck. Jean Heck was a truck driver for the municipality of Differdange, while Marie, a gentle and caring woman, was a stay-at-home mother.
On April 25, 1944, the Sicherheitspolizei Luxemburg came to arrest them. The couple had been denounced by neighbors for hiding young men who did not want to be conscripted by the Nazi occupiers; they were helping them flee to nearby France. Marie took care of hiding the young men, who, at nightfall, were directed by the couple to a resistance network that enabled them to flee to France.
Marie Heck was sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp for women, where she arrived in October 1944 after passing through several other prisons. Jean was imprisoned in Hinzert and returned at the end of the war.
Marie was among the prisoners who were evacuated in a hurry from Ravensbrück camp one month before the end of the war and taken to Mittwerda in a Vernichtungslager. Living conditions in this camp were systematically and drastically deteriorated in order to kill the women through starvation, disease, or cold. Many of them were also killed by poison and injections. Historical sources gathered from the testimonies of fellow prisoners indicate that murders were systematic in this camp. Records show that Marie Séraphine Heck died in the gas chambers on April 6, 1945. Marie was murdered at the age of 53, just a few days before Ravensbrück was liberated by the Soviet army on April 30, 1945.
Marie's loss plunged her family into deep grief and indescribable pain, especially since it was not until 1948, through a death certificate issued by the Luxembourg Ministry of the Interior, that Jean Heck learned the terrible truth about his wife's fate.
In a letter she sent from prison in June 1944 to her sister Madeleine Mertz, Marie expressed her concern for the well-being of her children and her husband Jean, who remained a widower until the end of his life.
Source :
● Patrick Heck, Bech mai 2025