Doumain, Louis
Item
Name
Doumain, Louis
Given name
Louis
Family name
Doumain
Relation
French YCW leader
One-line bio
Canadian-born French priest, who was sent to Germany under the Compulsory Work Service regime, where he continued to serve workers, leading to his arrest and deportation to the Zoschen concentration camp, where he died. He was beatified on 13 December 2025.
Biography
Born on 7 February, 1920, in Cardiff-Edmonton (Alberta), from French parents who had migrated to Canada, Louis arrives in France in 1926. He attends school, becomes a professor at the minor seminary in Annonay and is ordained a priest on 19 December, 1942.
On 8 July, 1943, he is required by the Service du Travail Obligatoire created by the Government of Vichy and sent to Germany. He is assigned to a chemical factory, in I.G. Bitterfeld, near Leipzig. During this time he celebrates mass for French workers, directs the Action Catholique in the region together with Roger Martins, a jociste from Roubaix-Tourcoing, and he prepares people to receive Catholic Sacraments: Baptism and First Communion. He is able to celebrate mass every day, first in the parish church, in French – as long as he was allowed to – and then, when it became forbidden, he celebrated mass in the private chapel of the sisters of Bitterfeld.
As a result of the Nazi decree of 3 December, 1943, against the French Action Catholique amongst the French workers living in Nazi Germany, he is arrested on 19 September, 1944, after a mass celebrated in the woods. Together with him other 40 young workers and activists and priests of Gau Halle-Merseburg are arrested.
Father Doumain is interrogated first in Bitterfeld then in Halle. The Gestapo offers to free him if he promises not to celebrate mass anymore. Father Doumain refuses their proposal and therefore, on 21 November 1944, he is sent off to the disciplinary camps of Spergau and Zoschen, created to eliminate prisoners.
He dies at Zoschen, on 20 December, after undergoing throat surgery. He was 24 years old.
He is part of the fifty French victims of Nazi persecution, the so-called “Martyrs de l’Apostolat”. Their beatification case was open in 1988.
On 8 July, 1943, he is required by the Service du Travail Obligatoire created by the Government of Vichy and sent to Germany. He is assigned to a chemical factory, in I.G. Bitterfeld, near Leipzig. During this time he celebrates mass for French workers, directs the Action Catholique in the region together with Roger Martins, a jociste from Roubaix-Tourcoing, and he prepares people to receive Catholic Sacraments: Baptism and First Communion. He is able to celebrate mass every day, first in the parish church, in French – as long as he was allowed to – and then, when it became forbidden, he celebrated mass in the private chapel of the sisters of Bitterfeld.
As a result of the Nazi decree of 3 December, 1943, against the French Action Catholique amongst the French workers living in Nazi Germany, he is arrested on 19 September, 1944, after a mass celebrated in the woods. Together with him other 40 young workers and activists and priests of Gau Halle-Merseburg are arrested.
Father Doumain is interrogated first in Bitterfeld then in Halle. The Gestapo offers to free him if he promises not to celebrate mass anymore. Father Doumain refuses their proposal and therefore, on 21 November 1944, he is sent off to the disciplinary camps of Spergau and Zoschen, created to eliminate prisoners.
He dies at Zoschen, on 20 December, after undergoing throat surgery. He was 24 years old.
He is part of the fifty French victims of Nazi persecution, the so-called “Martyrs de l’Apostolat”. Their beatification case was open in 1988.
Country of origin
English
Canada
Geographic area
Alberta
Birth date
February 7, 1920
Birth place
Cardiff-Edmonton
Death date
December 20, 1944
Death place
Zöschen Concentration Camp
Movement
French JOC
Affiliation
French JOC