Earlier on 17 June, French troops occupied Chasselay, a village roughly fifteen kilometres north-west of Lyon.

German officers specifically ordered French civilians living nearby not to bury the murdered soldiers, but instead to let them rot in the open.

Jean Marchiani, who held the position of General Secretary of the Departmental Office of disabled ex-servicemen, veterans and victims of war heard about the massacre.

He decided to bring together the bodies of the African soldiers, some of whom were buried in local cemeteries while others were often simply left to lay in ditches in the middle of the countryside.

After identifying the villages where bodies were buried, Jean Marchiani bought a plot of land in Chasselay, near the locality of Vide-Sac where roughly 50 Black prisoners were shot by the Germans, and raised funds for the erection of the cemetery.