From 1940 to 1944 the villa was used as the headquarters of the Einsatzkommando der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (Gestapo).

All people who showed their opposition and or  resistance towards the German policy of annexation of Luxembourg to the German Reich were arrested and brought to the headquarters of the Gestapo to be interrogated.  Sometimes they would also be subjected to torture  before being sent to prison  or concentration camps. The villa’s basement was transformed into prison cells where numerous members of  resistance movements were interrogated and tortured.

The offices of the ’Judenbeauftragter’ (Commissioner for Jews) were located in the same building. On these premises the deportation lists were compiled and the deportations organised.

Two plaques on the outside of the villa commemorate the victims of the Resistance and the 1,300 Jews whose deportation was organised here.

The two plaques read:

‘Villa Pauly / Siège de la Gestapo 1940-1944. Passant, souviens-toi des résistants torturés en ces lieux sous l’occupation nazie’.

‘Passant souviens-toi qu’en ces lieux fut organisée à partir de 1941 la déportation des Juifs du Luxembourg. 1300 enfants, femmes et hommes ont péri dans la tourmente de la Shoah.’ 

(EN: Villa Pauly / Gestapo headquarters 1940-1944. Passers-by, remember the Resistance fighters tortured here during the Nazi Occupation'.

Passers-by, remember that this is where the deportation of Luxembourg's Jews was organised from 1941 onwards. 1300 children, women and men perished in the torment of the Shoah'.)

The Villa Pauly became the embodiment of brutal Nazi rule in Luxembourg.