21 political prisoners, mainly foreign nationals, were killed by the French soldiers who feared that they might become possible fifth columnists or collaborators with Nazi Germany.

They just picked up some people: out of revenge, out of jealousy, because of their political beliefs, their Jewish origin or because of their foreign nationality," wrote survivor Gaby Warris.

Despite unsuccessful attempts by befriended members of parliament to free Van Severen (as they had VNV leader Staf Declercq), he was deported to France on 15 May 1940 with Degrelle and 77 others.

The group also included 18 Jews, 14 German citizens, four Italians (Ferrucio Bellumat, Luigi Lazarelli, Guiseppe Mantella, and Mirko Taccardi), two Dutchmen (Willem van de Loo and Johannes van der Plas), Canadian ice hockey coach Bobby Bell [de], and a number of Belgian communists (Louis Caestecker and Lucien Monami, among others).

Twenty-one prisoners were taken from the kiosk, placed against the wall, and shot without trial on the orders of the French Capitaine Marcel Dingeon [fr], who was Abbeville's deputy commander.

Among the 21 victims were citizens of six different countries besides Belgium, including Italy, Czechoslovakia (Léon Hirschfeld, a Jewish schizophreniac) and Hungary (Miguel Sonin-Garfunkel, an elderly Spanish Jew).

Verdinaso, which had more far-right conservative leanings than the Rexists, did not share the racist ideology of the Nazi regime, with Van Severen having said "I detest the Hitlerians," in a previous interview.